Mary Ann Ball – a mother’s story

For so many women wartime losses came at an age when they would have expected, or at least hoped, that their life was entering a more peaceful phase; when the worry of raising a family was past.

Mary Ann faced some tough challenges during her lifetime. She was 61 years old when her second son, George Glendower Ball, died in 1918 during the First World War. George Glendower Ball was rejected for military service twice before successfully enlisting with the Norfolk Regiment. 33800 Private George Glendower Ball died in the Bavarian War Hospital, Tournai on March 7, 1918, his 30th birthday. He is buried in the Tournai Communal Cemetery.

Photograph of George Glendower Ball published courtesy of Duncan and Mandy Ball.

Born in Bristol in 1857 Mary Ann married George Ball in 1885 and by 1891 the couple were running the Temperance Hotel on Station Road. The census returns of that year record their four young children William 5, Millicent 4, Glendower 3 and Samuel just three months old. What the stark facts and figures of subsequent census returns are unable to convey are the tragic circumstances surrounding their eldest son. William had contracted measles at the age of two, which left him disabled; he never appeared in any family photographs.

This photograph of Mary Ann and her family is published courtesy of Duncan and Mandy Ball.

In 1922, when Mary Ann was 65, her husband George was killed in a railway accident when he was struck down while crossing the line at Shrivenham station. Then two years later her disabled son William died aged 48. Mary Ann died just a few months later.

Mary Ann is one of the extraordinary ordinary people buried in Radnor Street Cemetery.

The parents and their son are buried together in grave plot D1305. Their son George Glendower Ball is mentioned on their headstone.