My late parents lived in Maryland (near Washington, D. C.), and over the decades, we made many trips to see them. On a visit many, many years ago, we met one of their friends, a lady named Alice Ball.  At that time, I was writing stories about the western film for Classic Images, Favorite Westerns, etc., and somehow we got chatting about ol' cowboy movies. Lo and behold, Alice mentioned that her dad was Frank Ball, and he did a bunch of westerns starring Bob Steele, Johnny Mack Brown, others. At home, I paged through all the film listings in Les Adams and Buck Rainey's Shoot Em Ups book for Frank Ball credits, and checked the list of titles against my collection of VHS tapes. I ran off a bunch of videos for Alice, and gave them to her at our next visit back East. Also gave her the filmography that I had compiled from Les and Buck's book. I jotted down notes from Alice about her dad, their time in California, how Frank got into films, etc., and transcribed those onto a word processing document. But it was done on a Commodore 64 computer (and a 5 1/4" floppy disk) - that Commodore 64 is long gone, and I apparently never printed out a copy of the Frank Ball writeup that I had given to Alice. Back in those days, I never guessed that I'd have a future need for that info.

I promised Alice that someday I'd do a story on her dad. Alice had a stroke and passed away in 1999. Here's the writeup, and my apologies for it being late.

The search for Frank Ball

A while back, author and Old Corral contributor Ken Jones had asked me if I had any info on Frank Ball. That was the nudge I needed, but for the life of me, I couldn't recall much of anything that Alice had told me. Too much time had passed. The only things I could vaguely remember were:

• the Ball Family had some famous ancestors.
• she and her father had returned to the Washington DC area around 1940 or so.
• she (or the family) had donated some photos or portraits to the Smithsonian.
• her father had become friends with someone who did western films (and I recall it being either producer A. W. Hackel of Supreme Pictures or scriptwriter/director Robert North Bradbury, the father of Bob Steele).

I jotted off a request to the Social Security Administration for a copy of Alice's Social Security application.  Info on her application follows:

Alice Dulany Ball, born 7/3/1913 in Washington, D. C.
Father and mother's name: Francis Mallory Ball, Sr. and Alice Noble.
The application was dated 7/19/1941, and Alice (who was about 28 years old at the time) listed her occupation as a teaching assistant at the University of California in Los Angeles since 7/1/1940.

The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) had records for:

FRANCIS BALL (western movie actor)
Residence: Washington, District Of Columbia, DC
Born 25 May 1876
Died Mar 1968
Issued: CA (Before 1951)

ALICE BALL (Frank's daughter)
Residence: Washington, District Of Columbia, DC
Born 3 Jul 1913
Died 9 Jan 1999
Issued: CA (Before 1951)

FRANCIS BALL (Frank's son)
Residence: Camarillo, Ventura, CA
Born 9 Aug 1907
Died 29 Dec 1992
Issued: CA (Before 1951)

The California Death Index had a record for Frank's son:

BALL, FRANCIS MALLORY
Born 8/9/1907
Mother's Maiden name: NOBLE
Male
Birthplace: DIST. OF COLUMBIA
Residence: VENTURA
Death: 12/29/1992
Age at death: 85

Californian Jerry Schneider, who has the Movie Locations website, found the following obituary clip for Frank's son:

January 5, 1993, Tuesday, Ventura County Edition, LA Times
SECTION: Metro; Part B; Page 5; Column 6
Ball, Francis M. Jr., 85, of Camarillo, retired geneticist at Cal State University Northridge. Conejo Mountain Memorial Park and Funeral Home, Camarillo.

In summary, the above records are for Alice, her brother Frank Jr., and her father, Frank Sr.

The Detective work continues ...

As we proceed further, you need to remember the middle names of both Alice and father Frank - Alice DULANY Ball, Francis MALLORY Ball, Sr.

Click on https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/resources/1259 for the M. D. Ball Papers, Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and their collection on Mottrom Dulany Ball (1835-1887).  Their webpage includes the following biographical info:

Mottrom Dulany Ball (1835-1887) was born in Fairfax County, Virginia, and was educated at the College of William and Mary. He taught school until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he formed a cavalry company and rose to the rank of Colonel in the Confederate Army. After the war, he practiced law and founded the Virginia Sentinel, which folded in 1876. In January 1878, he was appointed Collector of Customs for Alaska, and moved to Sitka with his wife, Sallie Lewis Wright Ball, and children. In September of 1881, he was elected Alaska's first unofficial delegate to Congress. Ball served as U. S. District Attorney for Alaska from 1885 to 1887, and was the founding editor of the Alaskan, a Sitka newspaper.

Click on https://www.ourfamtree.org/browse.php/Mottrom-Dulaney-Ball/p326968 for the genealogy website on the Corbin and Ball families. That link will take you to the page on Mottrom Dulany Ball and wife Sally Lewis Wright. Note that one of their four children is Francis Mallory Ball (Frank Ball, the actor).

Remember that Alice was donating some portraits or photos to the Smithsonian? The several e-mail contacts I made with the Smithsonian were super helpful and responsive. Didn't take long to discover Alice's portrait donations. The info below is from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery:

The significance of these paintings may be due to the renowned artist, Charles Willson Peale. The portraits are of James Lewis, Warner Lewis, Jr., and Mrs. Warner Lewis, Jr.  Mottram Dulaney Ball's wife Sallie may have been related to the Lewis family, but I have no further info at this time. The names 'James Lewis' and 'Warner Lewis, Jr.' from the above paintings are referenced in another genealogy site at rootsweb. Click on http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~marshall/esmd45.htm and scroll down that webpage and take a read at the sections numbered 9., 11., and 12.

However, when I checked the Smithsonian a few years ago, I found that the portraits donated by the Ball family were no longer there. The Charles Willson Peale portraits of James Lewis, Warner Lewis II, and his wife had been moved to Colonial Williamsburg:
https://emuseum.history.org/objects/749/portrait-of-james-lewis-17531788?ctx=ed69305d5486cc41e9dd3cca2baac6f031f4dea8&idx=0
https://emuseum.history.org/objects/746/portrait-of-mary-chiswell-lewis-mrs-warner-lewis-ii-1748?ctx=ed69305d5486cc41e9dd3cca2baac6f031f4dea8&idx=2
https://emuseum.history.org/objects/747/portrait-of-warner-lewis-ii-17471791?ctx=ed69305d5486cc41e9dd3cca2baac6f031f4dea8&idx=3

The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery has one portrait donated by Alice Dulany Ball: https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_S_NPG.2000.4

  Although some of the data is incomplete or inaccurate, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has information on Frank Ball: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0050370/

Frank Ball and his wife are interred at Lewinsville Presbyterian Cemetery, McLean, Fairfax County, Virginia: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/150721984/francis-mallory-ball