Awards

Honorary Degree - 1940

LL.D.

Doctor of Laws

Commencement

Bloomington, Indiana

Presenter: Herman B Wells

About George A. Ball

When the Ball Brothers of Muncie, Indiana founded the Ball Brothers Company that became the largest fruit jar company in the world, each of the five brothers found ways to generously share of themselves and their wealth to significantly benefit the Hoosier state. By the mid-1950s, the family’s holdings were one of the great fortunes in the country and the Ball family was ranked among the leading philanthropists of Indiana and the nation. The last surviving brother, George Alexander Ball used his financial assets, leadership, and philanthropic vision to make a decisive difference in the building and development of many Indiana hospital and educational institutions, including Indiana University and Riley Hospital for Children.

Ball was on the Indiana University Board of Trustees from 1929 to 1938 and was president of the board from 1936 to 1938. As a trustee, he was instrumental in making Riley Hospital for Children a unit of the Indiana University School of Medicine and establishing the hospital as a teaching center for medical students. He also served as a director of the Indiana University Foundation since its founding in 1936. He was one of ten members of the original Joint Executive Committee comprised of five members each from the Riley Memorial Association (now the Riley Children’s Foundation) and the Indiana University Board of Trustees tasked with fund-raising and supervision of the construction and operations of Riley Hospital for Children, which opened in November 1924. Ball was a charter member of the James Whitcomb Riley Memorial Association (now the Riley Children’s Foundation) and served as a director from its beginning in 1921 to 1953. The Association named him a Life Governor in 1953.

After Riley Hospital for Children opened, the hospital faced challenging financial times in 1926 that threatened future capability for continued operation and expansion. It was George Ball and his brother Frank C. Ball who generously donated $500,000 to the Riley Memorial Association on the condition that the Association would raise an additional $1 million. The Association’s fund-raising campaign was successful and the $500,000 from the brothers was used to build the Ball Nurses Residence in 1928. The residence provided living quarters and a training facility for 165 nurses and staff members to learn, work and live close to Riley Hospital for Children, and additionally helped spark the growth of the Medical Center campus and the Indiana University Training School for Nurses (now the Indiana University School of Nursing). Due to the generous gifts of the Ball brothers to the hospital’s building fund, the gymnasium inside the completed Riley Hospital for Children was named the Ball Gym. In recognition of his many contributions to Riley Hospital for Children, in 1952 on Ball’s 90th birthday, the Riley Memorial Association endowed the George A. Ball Professorship in Surgery that brought in visiting professors in different areas of surgery from across the country who introduced Riley medical staff to the most current surgical best practices.