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MINGO COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Chris & Kerry
cmac4330@chesapeake.net
December 4, 1999
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.
Chicago and New York, Volume II pg.63
Marion Tivis Ball. An exemplification of self-made manhood is found in the
career and person of Marion T. Ball, of Williamson, Mingo County. A man of
prominence and influence in his community, he has risen solely through the
medium of his own efforts and well-applied industry, for he entered upon his
career with nothing but an indifferent education to aid him and was forced to
depend wholly upon his own resources.
Mr. Ball was born February 21, 1861, in Pike County, Kentucky, a son of Jesse
and Jane (Keith). Ball, natives of Virginia. The Ball family is one that dates
its ancestry back to early Colonial days in Virginia, while the Keiths
originated in Ireland. Jesse Ball was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal
faith, which he followed in Virginia. His nine children were reared in Kentucky.
The youngest child in a large family, with the only means of support the meager
and uncertain salary of a country preacher, Marion Tivis Ball had few of the
pleasures and advantages that are considered youth's inalienable right in these
days. In fact he considered himself lucky to be able to get an education in the
country school, which he finished when he was fourteen years of age, with the
exception of some irregular attendance during the winter months on several
later occasion. When he was fourteen he began to add to the family income by
working in a sawmill, and during the six years that he was thus engaged mastered
the business in numerous of its particulars. He then took up carpentry as a
vocation, and this occupation he followed with success for some twenty years.
Next, he accepted a position with the Hurst Hardware Company of Williamson, and
while associated with Mr. Hurst in the furniture division of the store, became
familiar with the undertaking business. In 1913 Mr. Ball purchased the
undertaking department of Mr. Hurst's establishment, and since then has devoted
his time to this vocation. Mr. Ball has the tact and diplomacy necessary for his
chosen line of work, into which he brings the latest methods for the reverent
care of the dead.
In 1881, while a resident of Pike County, Kentucky, Mr. Ball was united in
marriage with Dorcas Casebolt, a daughter of William and Lottie Casebolt,
natives of Kentucky, and to this union there have been born five children:
Robert Edgar, associated with his father in the undertaking business at
Williamson, who married Willa Lowther; Virginia Stella, who married Lee Fentor
Morris, of Williamson, and has one child, Nancy Lou, born in 1921; Lewellyn
Ferne, who married Guy Hobson Hughes of Williamson; Goebel Keith and Marion
Tabor. The family belongs to the Presbyterian Church except Mr. Ball, who is an
adherent of the Methodist Episcopal faith. He belongs to the Kiwanis Club, and
as a Mason holds membership in the Blue Lodge and Chapter at Williamson, the
Knights Templar at Huntington, the Scottish Rite at Wheeling and is a member of
Beni-Kedem Temple, A.A.O.N.M.S. of Charleston, West Virginia. His support is
always given to worthy civic movements, and he can be counted upon to
contribute to those measures which have for their object the raising of
standards of morality and citizenship.
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