Katherine Aristeen Hart Ball

May 23, 1926 ~ March 20, 2018

© Holmes-Coffey-Murray Funeral Home

Submitted by: T.D.

Funeral services for Kate Ball of Durant, Oklahoma, will be held at 1:30 PM Wednesday March 28, 2018 at the St. John's Episcopal Church with Father James Blagg officiating. Family hour will be from 7-8:00 PM Tuesday March 27th at the Holmes~Coffey~Murray Funeral Home in Durant, Oklahoma. Burial will follow the funeral on Wednesday at the Highland Cemetery in Durant.

Katherine Aristeen Hart was born to Richard Horn and Onie Conyers Hart on May 23, 1926, in Harlingen, Texas. She attended public schools in Corpus Christi and Houston before the family moved to New Orleans when she was nine years old. There she attended public schools until her graduation from John McDonogh Public School for girls in 1942. The following year she took further studies at McMain High School in New Orleans. In 1943 she entered Southeastern Louisiana College in Hammond for her freshman year. The next year she went to Louisiana College in Pineville, and graduated with a BA degree in English in 1947. She won a graduate assistantship to Syracuse University in New York, and attended there from 1947 to 1949, when she took an MA degree in English. It was at Syracuse that she met her future husband, Lee Ball, Jr. They both were in the same class of John Milton's poetry, taught by Professor William Yerington. She later taught in public schools in Louisiana and Kentucky.

Kate married Lee on June 13, 1951. Their son Roger was born in Pikeville, Kentucky in 1956. She taught college in English and French in Kentucky, Iowa. In 1962 the family adopted a baby girl and named her Mary Elizabeth. Kate left college teaching in order to open a school of dyslexic children, having worked out a successful method of remediation for this disorder. She also privately tutored a number of adults and children who were dyslexic, and enabled them to learn to read and lived normal, happy, productive lives. Kate was a long-time member of the Bryan County Federation of Democratic Woman. She belonged to St. John's Episcopal Church and in 1976 wrote a history of this parish church, Wait for the Promise. Her other writings include Christian's Journey, which is a modern adaption of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress; J. B. and Job; A Workshop Method for teaching the Term Paper; and numerous books pertaining to her method of remediating dyslexia.

Mrs. Ball is preceded in death by her parents, Richard and Onie Hart; beloved husband, Lee Ball, Jr.; and two brothers, Edward Horn Hart of Marina Del Rey, California, and Richard Conyers Hart of Mandeville, Louisiana.

Mrs. Ball is survived by her cherished son, John Roger Ball and wife Sandra Kay of Seattle; daughter, Mary Elizabeth Ball of Sioux City, Iowa; and numerous cousins, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces, and grand-nephews.

Services are under the direction of Holmes~Coffey~Murray Funeral Home in Durant, Oklahoma www.holmescoffeymurray.com herine