Mingo County, West Virginia Biography of Marion Tivis BALL This biography was submitted by Kerry Armour, E-mail address: This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm 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.