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Historical November–December 2019 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Mrs. Rosie Ball and her husband Israel moved into the Skinker DeBaliviere neighborhood in 1968 from a different part of the city near Lexington and Fair. Mr. Ball worked at Sligo Steel, and Mrs. Ball worked at Miss Sheri’s Cafeteria as a head cook.
They decided to move into the Skinker DeBaliviere neighborhood because they found that the neighbors here are very friendly and they felt like they were a family with those surrounding them. Mr. and Mrs. Ball eventually raised 10 children in the house that went to school at Hamilton Elementary and then followed to Soldan High School.
The Ball’s now have over 20 grandchildren, and many great grandchildren. Mr. and Mrs. Ball have been the model of family in the neighborhood and have always opened their large family celebrations to neighbors to participate as was the case this year when Mrs. Ball celebrated her 92nd birthday surrounded by loved ones, related and related by proximity. Unfortunately, Mrs. Ball passed away just before this article would go to press, and her presence and that of her large extended family will surely be missed. Mrs. Joan Bender and her husband Rick and their five children also moved into Skinker DeBaliviere in 1968 from Pittsburgh, PA.
They moved so that Mr. Bender could accept a position teaching at St. Louis University. Mr. and Mrs. Bender chose our neighborhood because of it’s proximity to Forest Park, but also because the neighborhood was diverse.
After being steered away from the Skinker DeBaliviere Neighborhood by local realtors because of the racial profile being ascribed to this neighborhood, Mrs. Bender joined forces with other neighbors to openly market and promote the neighborhood.
These neighbors created a long running Mother’s Day Art Fair and House Tour to bring people into the neighborhood, they volunteered to show apartments and homes for rent, they created a housing development corporation, cranked out a mimeographed newsletter, and some of the women even got real estate licenses so that they could sell homes in the neighborhood. Mrs. Bender wrote in an article for the Times in 1994 “I spoke with Suzanne Hart recently.
We reflected on those five years of showing homes.
She commented that unless residents are tuned into neighborhood events, a similar housing situation could happen again.” Mrs. Bender still lives in the home that she bought with her late husband in 1968 with her daughter Rachel and her husband Matt and their three children, Gretchen, Christian, and Maddy.
As neighbors we are grateful for long term residents like the Ball and Bender families who have been anchors in the community and act as models to others for community and activism.
Original photograph caption
Rosie and Israel Ball.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, November–December 2019.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2019_11.pdf, printed page(s) 2; PDF page(s) 2.
