of Samuel Davis and Fanny (Yenowine) Wetherby. His grandfather was a surgeon in the Union Army during the Civil War. His father was also a physician and farmer, and during his childhood years, Wetherby worked on the family farm. After graduating from Anchorage High School, Wetherby enrolled in the pre-law program at the University of Louisville. He was a letterman on the football team in 1927 and 1928; he also played second base on the baseball team in 1928 and 1929, and was a letterman in that sport in 1929. He was later inducted into the university's Athletic Hall of Fame. In 1929, he earned his Bachelor of Laws degree and went to work for Judge Henry Tilford. The two would remain partners until 1950. On April 24, 1930, he married Helen Dwyer; the couple had three children. Thanks to his father's influence, Wetherby became interested in local politics at an early age. School board races fascinated him, and he allied himself with a faction of the Jefferson County Democratic Party headed by Leland Taylor and Ben Ewing. When Ewing was elected county judge in 1933, he appointed Wetherby as a part-time attorney for the Jefferson County juvenile court. He held this position through 1937, then returned to it in 1942 and 1943. In March 1943, he was appointed the first trial commissioner of the juvenile court. Lieutenant governor Wetherby was elected chairman of the 34th Legislative District Democratic Committee in 1943 and held the position through 1956. In March 1947, he resigned as trial commissioner of the juvenile court in order to run for lieutenant governor. The strongest of his four opponents in the Democratic primary was Bill May, the nephew of U.S. Representative Andrew J. May. May had sought the support of gubernatorial candidate Earle C. Clements, but Clements refused, possibly because Congressman May was an ally of Clements' political opponent John Y. Brown. Wetherby was also unable to secure Clements' public endorsement, but he won the primary and went on to defeat Republican Orville M. Howard by over 95,000 votes. Despite Clements' refusal to endorse Wetherby in the primary, the two generally agreed on their legislative agendas and worked well together. Some observers called Wetherby Kentucky's first "working" lieutenant governor. Previous lieutenant governors did little beyond their constitutionally mandated duty of presiding over the Kentucky Senate, but during Clements' administration, Wetherby was charged with preparing a state