November 11, 1869 - Caroline Peddle Ball (Nov 11, 1869 – Oct 1, 1938)

By Sherri Wright

Caroline Peddle Ball was born in Terre Haute on November 11, 1869. Her father had been hired by Chauncey Rose in 1851 as the master mechanic of the Terre Haute & Richmond Railroad. Caroline was the sister of John B. Peddle, later a professor of machine design at Rose Polytechnic and the father of future Terre Haute architect, Juliet Peddle. The family lived on North 9th Street and later at 502 North Center Street. Caroline had her first drawing lesson at Normal Training School and then studied privately with Professor William Ames of Rose Polytechnic (with her friend, Nettie (Janet) Scudder.) The two girls worked together to submit prize-winning exhibits at county and state fairs in Indiana and Illinois.

Caroline also studied briefly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and the Art Students League in New York under Augustus St. Gaudens and Kenyon Cox. Her work attracted the attention of Tiffany & Company, which employed her on numerous projects, including some of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Between 1895 and 1902, Ball lived abroad, first in Florence, then in Paris and Rome. While overseas she created interior decorations for private homes, and monumental sculptures such as her statue of “Victory” for the United States Building at the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1900.

Ball was a prolific exhibitor of her work until late in life. Her life-size sculpture of Russian-American actress Alla Nazimova drew tributes at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts. Bird fountains, models of children, cemetery headstones, and decorative street lamps were specialties. Ball presented several prize pieces to Emeline Fairbanks Memorial Library. Some are located the Swope Art Museum. Caroline Peddle Ball spent her final years in Connecticut, where she died at the age of 68 in 1938.