Services for Margaret Olive McConnaha Ball, 93, who died at her home August 12, 1996, will be 1:30 p.m. Friday, August 16 at First United Methodist Church in Blair. Burial will be in the Tekamah Cemetery.

Margaret Olive McConnaha Ball was born on a farm west of Herman January 7, 1903 to Robert E. and Nancy Loftis McConnaha. When she was six weeks old, her family moved to a farm near Baydsville, Missouri. They later resided for several years on a farm near Gutheri, Missouri where she attended school through eighth grade.

When she was a junior in high school in New Bloomfield, Missouri, her family moved three miles outside the town. She completed high school there in 1921.

She attended the summer term at the Kirksville State Teachers College. After taking the State Teachers Exam and receiving a teacher’s certificate, she taught the one room Duley School near Baydsville for two terms. Returning to Kirksville Teachers College in 1922, she received a two-year teacher’s certificate. She then taught her second term at Duley School.

In the spring of 1923, she moved to Herman and taught two years at the upper room of Crawford School west of Tekamah.

She entered nurses training at Nebraska Methodist Hospital in Omaha in September, 1925. Upon her graduation as a registered nurse, she worked at Methodist Hospital as an obstetrics floor supervisor. She remained there until 1931, when she began working in the Veterans Hospital system.

She worked in a hospital in Kansas City from March, 1931 until 1933 when she transferred to a new Veterans Hospital at Wadsworth, Kansas. She transferred to a Veterans Hospital in Oklahoma City in 1946.

She retired in 1961 after working for the government for 30 years and received a disability discharge in June, 1961 because of Paget’s Disease.

She moved to Pender, Nebraska to help her sister in 1961, living in Pender until after brother Richard’s death in 1979.

In December 1980, she moved to Blair.

She was a member of the Methodist Church, Methodist Women’s Organization, P.E.O. Sisterhood, Home Economics club, Monday After¬noon Club and Order of Eastern Star.

She married Ashby Ball at Harrisonville, Missouri July 9, 1935. He preceded her in death September 7, 1953.

In addition to her husband, she was preceded in death by her parents, seven brothers and one sister.

She is survived by nieces and nephews, Mary Helen (Mrs. Byron) Bergman, Omaha; Frances Vernon, Tekamah; Mike McConnaha, Salem, Oregon; Donald Staples. Clinton, Arkansas and Wendell McConnaha, Arizona.

Campbell-Aman Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

~~~ Obituary courtesy of the Washington County Genealogical Society. Newspaper clippings on file in the Blair Public Library at Blair, Nebraska.~~~