George Ballard (-1929)

BALLARD

Posted By: Mark Christian
Date: 8/15/2008 at 22:53:20

AMES DAILY TRIBUNE-TIMES, Ames, Story County, Iowa, Monday, December 30, 1929.

Funeral Planned Tuesday for G. Ballard, Suicide

Funeral services for George Ballard, 53, Ames, who committed suicide in a cornfield near Ames Saturday afternoon, will be held Tuesday afternoon, at 2 o'clock at the Adams chapel. The Rev. D. D. Wilkinson will be in charge. Burial will be in the Ames cemetery.

An estranged wife living in Chicago and 10 children survive. The children are Frank and Willard of Ames, Eva of Clinton, Edna of Omaha, Neb.; Lawrence and Dorothy of Grinnell, Sheldon of Des Moines, and four younger children who made their home with their father, Edith, Lloyd, Emmett and Evelyn.

Ballard lived in Grinnell for 15 years. The remainder of his life was spent in Story county in the Cambridge and Ames communities.

Ballard died in a cornfield about two miles southeast of Ames as a self-inflicted bullet wound just above the heart. Coroner J. G. Mills pronounced his death suicide late Saturday evening after finding a note in Ballard's pocket.

The note attributed the act to family troubles.

The body was discovered by several farmers when they heard a shot after meeting Ballard in the field. He was carrying a single barrel, 12-gauge shotgun and told them he was hunting.