Bessie Maude Ball

BALL, MITCHELL, HALL, MCCULLEY, CAMPBELL, BANKS

Posted By: Judy Kelley (volunteer) (email)
Date: 3/15/2009 at 16:59:57

Columbus Gazette, 23 July 1997

Bessie Maude Ball, age 95, of Wapello, Iowa, died July 20, 1997, at the Community Care of America at Mediapolis, Iowa. She had made her home with her daughters the past ten years.

The daughter of Samuel C. and Addie (Mitchell) Hall, she was born October 13, 1901, at Nelson, Nebraska. Her early years were spent in Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, before her family moved to Iowa in 1915. She was a homemaker and farmed with her husband on their farm west of Wapello. She was a member of the United Methodist Church, the UMW, and was a Sunday School teacher for 20 years at Wapello.

Bessie married Merle D. Ball on March 4, 1926, at Columbus City. He died November 23, 1993.

Survivors included three daughters, Betty McCulley and JoAnne Campbell, Wapello, and Lois Banks, San Antonio, Texas; and a son, Warren Ball, Wapello. There are ten grandchildren; eleven great-grandchildren; and one great-great- grandson.

She was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, an infant son; five brothers; and three sisters.

Funeral services were held at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, at the United Methodist Church at Wapello, with Rev. John Ling and Rev. Judith Shields officiating. Music was provided by Mary Kilpatrick as organist. Casketbearers were Bob McCulley, Mark McCulley, John McCulley, Jr., Doug Campbell, Nick McCulley, and J.R. McCulley. Burial was at the Long Creek Cemetery, rural Wapello.

A memorial fund has been established for the benefit of the United Methodist Churches of Wapello and Oakville.