Eve Ball

{{Short description|American historian (1890-1984)}} {{Infobox person | honorific_prefix = | name = Katherine Evelyn Daly Ball | honorific_suffix = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | image = Eve Ball c. 1920.png | alt = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date |1890|3|14|df=yes}} | birth_place = Clarksville, Tennessee, US | death_date = {{death date and age |1984|12|24 |1890|3|14|df=yes}} | death_place = Ruidoso, New Mexico, US | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates =  | other_names = | occupation = Historian | education = | alma_mater = Kansas State Teachers College of Pittsburg (B.S.) Kansas State University (M.A.) | awards = Golden Spur Award Saddleman's Award Cowgirl Hall of Fame | spouse = | partner =  | children = | signature =  | signature_alt = }} '''Eve Ball''' (14 March 1890 – 24 December 1984) was an American historian of the American West and a teacher. She is best known for her oral research and books on Apache Native American tribes, particularly ''Indeh: An Apache Odessey''. In 1981, she received the Saddleman's Award, "the Oscar of western writing" for ''Indeh: An Apache Odessey''.

==Early life and education== Katherine Evelyn Daly Ball was born on 14 March 1890 in Kentucky.<ref name="women" /><ref name="men" /> She was born to Samuel Richard and Gazelle (Gibbs) Daly; Daly was the first woman doctor in Kansas.<ref name="women">{{cite book |last1=Scanlon |first1=Jennifer |last2=Cosner |first2=Shaaron |title=American Women Historians, 1700s–1990s: A Biographical Dictionary |date=1996 |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport, Connecticut |isbn=9781567509175 |page=11 |url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?resultListType=RELATED_DOCUMENT&userGroupName=byuprovo&inPS=true&contentSegment=&prodId=GVRL&isETOC=true&docId=GALE|accessdate=May 3, 2019}}</ref> Her family moved to a cattle ranch in Kansas when she was young.<ref name="men" />{{rp|12}} She began reading at the age of four, and by the age of twelve, was bored with traditional education. She began teaching in Kansas schools by the age of sixteen.<ref name="men" />{{rp|12}} Ball was known as a tomboy and even coached a junior high school boys basketball team.<ref name="men" />{{rp|12}} She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in education at Kansas State Teachers College of Pittsburg in 1918 and became a teacher. Ball graduated with a Master of Arts in education from Kansas State University in 1934.<ref name="women" />

==Career==

During the Dust Bowl, she taught English at a junior college in Dodge City, Kansas.<ref name="men" />{{rp|13}} During World War II, she worked at oil refineries as a chemist in Hobbs, New Mexico.<ref name="men" />{{rp|13}} She was married to Joseph P. Ball, who was a captain of the Kansas National Guard, but he died in World War I.<ref name="meta" /> She purchased Hermosa Inn, then called ''La Casa Hermosa'' from artist Lon Megargee, operating a dude ranch there, but she later gave it up because it was too much work to maintain and it prevented her from having time to write.<ref name="men" />{{rp|15–18}} Ball spent most of her career teaching, eventually settling in Ruidoso, New Mexico. She purchased property near Nob Hill in Ruidoso. To make a living, she ran an antique store from her home and constructed and leased apartments on her property. She wrote articles from the observations she made and stories she heard.<ref name="men" />{{rp|24}} In New Mexico, she became interested in Native Americans and the American West. She began researching them in the 1940s and interviewed southwestern pioneers and Apaches at a time when there was no academic interest in those subjects or oral histories in general.<ref name="women" /><ref name="voices" />{{rp|xi–xii}}<ref name="meta" /> She had the opportunity to interview descendants and relatives of Geronimo, Victorio, Nana, and Juh.<ref name="meta" /> She used shorthand to take notes from the interviews to prevent intimidating interviewees with video and tape recording. She would read them back to her interviewees to correct errors or ask more questions.<ref name="men" />{{rp|34}} She is well known for seeking out and sharing the Apache point of view of encounters with colonizers.<ref name="west" /> In 1967, the Folklore Society of New Mexico presented a plaque to J. Frank Dobie, N. Howard Thorp, and Ball at Zimmerman Library at the University of New Mexico.<ref name="men" />{{rp|69}} Ball was given an honorary doctorate by College of Artesia in 1972.<ref name="women" /> In 1972, she edited and created a book from a recovered manuscript by Lily Klasner.<ref name="men" />{{rp|29}} She published ''In the Days of Victorio: Recollections of a Warm Springs Apache'' in 1970 and ''Indeh: An Apache Odessy'' in 1980.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ball |first1=Eve |title=In the Days of Victorio: Recollections of a Warm Springs Apache |publisher=The University of Arizona Press |location=Tucson, Arizona |isbn=9780816504015 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lddyCgAAQBAJ&dq=%22eve+ball%22&pg=PR5 |accessdate=3 May 2019|date=2015 }}</ref><ref name="meta" /> Because of the strong relationship she gained with Apache member Daklugie (Geronimo's nephew and Juh's son), he gifted Ball his war club which he had hidden for 27 years as a prisoner of war and then recovered.<ref name="men" />{{rp|9}}

She received the Golden Spur Award from the Western Writers of America in 1975 for the best non-fiction short story ''Buried Money'', published in ''True West Magazine''.<ref name="men">{{cite book |last1=Sanchez |first1=Lynda A. |title=Eve Ball, Woman Among Men |date=2007 |publisher=Lincoln County Historical Society |location=Lincoln, New Mexico |isbn=978-0977261437}}</ref>{{rp|69}} She also won the Saddleman’s Award, "the Oscar of western writing" in 1981 for ''Indeh, an Apache Odyssey'', a compilation of interviews with Apaches.<ref name="women" /><ref name="men" />{{rp|69}} Few women had received the Saddleman Award at that point in time and she considered receiving the award one of her proudest moments.<ref name="men" />{{rp|69}} The following year Ball was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame.<ref name="women" /> Ball was a guest speaker in May 1978 for the World Business Council.<ref name="men" />{{rp|69}} On October 7, 1983, the United States Senate passed resolution S.Res.230 to commend Eve Ball.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bingaman |first1=Jeff |title=Legislation Sponsored or Cosponsored by Jeff Bingaman |url=https://www.congress.gov/member/jesse-bingaman/B000468?q=%7B%22subject%22%3A%22Arts%2C+Culture%2C+Religion%22%7D |website=Congress.gov |publisher=Library of Congress |accessdate=May 3, 2019}}</ref> Ball died in Ruidoso, New Mexico, on 24 December 1984.<ref name="women" /> She continued to write up until her death, despite losing her eyesight.<ref name="meta" /> Ball wrote countless stories and book manuscripts that were never published.<ref name="meta" /> Ball's mentee Lynda A. Sanchez wrote and compiled a photo essay about Ball called, ''Eve Ball, Woman Among Men'' in 2007.<ref name="west" /><ref>{{cite web |title=Eve Ball, Woman Among Men, A. Photo Essay by Lynda A. Sanchez |url=http://www.thedolanhouse.com/eve-ball-woman-among-men-a-photo-essay-by-lynda-a-sanchez-signed-copy/ |website=The Dolan House |accessdate=3 May 2019}}</ref> In 2009, The New Mexico Women's Forum placed a marker honoring Eve Ball along highway 380, in Lincoln County, New Mexico for "saving oral histories certain to be lost without her".<ref name="west">{{cite news |last1=Sanchez |first1=Lynda A. |title=The Apaches Spoke and Eve Ball Listened |url=https://truewestmagazine.com/the-apaches-spoke-and-eve-ball-listened/ |accessdate=3 May 2019 |work=True West Magazine |date=19 December 2009}}</ref> Eve Ball's papers reside at Brigham Young University.<ref name="voices">{{cite book |last1=Robinson |first1=Sherry |title=Apache Voices: Their Stories of Survival as Told to Eve Ball |date=2000 |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |location=Albuquerque, New Mexico |isbn=9780826321633 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t8VIryIK7dMC&dq=%22eve+ball%22&pg=PR11 |accessdate=3 May 2019}}</ref>{{rp|xi}}<ref name="meta">{{cite archival metadata |autho=Finding aid authors: Elizabeth Ballif and John M. Murphy |title=Eve Ball manuscripts and photographs |url=http://archives.lib.byu.edu/repositories/14/resources/2330 |repository=L. Tom Perry Special Collections |location=Provo, Utah |date=2011 |accessdate= 3 May 2016}}</ref>

==Works== '''Books''' *{{cite book |last1=Ball |first1=Eve |title=Ruidoso: The Last Frontier |date=1963 |publisher=Naylor, Co.}} *{{cite book |last1=Ball |first1=Eve |last2=Crosby |first2=Thelma |title=Bob Crosby: World Champion Cowboy |date=1966 |publisher=Clarendon Press |location=Clarendon, Texas}} *{{cite book |last1=Ball |first1=Eve |title=Ma'am Jones of the Pecos |date=1969 |publisher=The University of Arizona Press |location=Tucson, Arizona |isbn=978-0816504046 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7eGmprF2R2kC&dq=%22eve+ball%22&pg=PR11 |accessdate=3 May 2019}} *{{cite book |last1=Ball |first1=Eve |title=In the Days of Victorio: Recollections of a Warm Springs Apache |date=1970 |publisher=The University of Arizona Press |location=Tucson, Arizona |isbn=9780816504015 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lddyCgAAQBAJ&dq=%22eve+ball%22&pg=PR5 |accessdate=3 May 2019}} *{{cite book |last1=Klasner |first1=Lily |editor1-last=Ball |editor1-first=Eve |title=My Girlhood Among Outlaws |url=https://archive.org/details/mygirlhoodamongo00klas |url-access=registration |date=1972 |publisher=University of Arizona Press |location=Tucson, Arizona |isbn=9780816503544}} *{{cite book |last1=Ball |first1=Eve |last2=Henn |first2=Nora |last3=Sanchez |first3=Lynda A. |title=Indeh: An Apache Odyssey |date=1980 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |location=Norman, Oklahoma |isbn=9780806121659 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nh_vMuCuUc8C&dq=%22eve+ball%22&pg=PP2 |accessdate=3 May 2019}}

'''Journal articles''' *{{cite journal |last1=Ball |first1=Eve |title=The Apache Scouts: A Chiricahua Appraisal |journal=Arizona and the West |date=Winter 1965 |volume=7 |issue=4 |pages=315–328 |jstor=40167138 }}

'''Short stories''' *{{cite journal |last1=Ball |first1=Eve |title=Buried Money |journal=True West Magazine |date=1974}}

==References== {{Reflist|30em}}

==External links== *[http://archives.lib.byu.edu/repositories/14/resources/1570 Eve Ball papers], MSS 3096, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University *[http://archives.lib.byu.edu/repositories/14/resources/2330 Eve Ball manuscripts and photographs], MSS 7740, L. Tom Perry Special Collections *[https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/finding_aid/68/ Guide to MS117 Eve Ball Collection], University of Texas at El Paso {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ball, Eve}} Category:People from Clarksville, Tennessee Category:Pittsburg State University alumni Category:Kansas State University alumni Category:People from Ruidoso, New Mexico Category:1890 births Category:1984 deaths Category:20th-century American historians