BALLARD, Walter - Putnam

Services for Mr. Walter Shaw Ballard, who passed away Monday at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco, Calif will be held at 2 p.m. Friday from Gobin United Methodist Church in Greencastle. Rev. O  Gerald Trigg will officiate and the body will lie in state for one hour preceding services on Friday.  Interment will follow at Forest Hill Cemetery.  Friends may call 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Thursday at Hopkins-Rector Funeral Home, Greencastle Chapel.  Mr. Ballard, Rt 5, Greencastle, was born Feb 10, 1908 at Plainfield, the son of Horace Jessup and Gertrude (Shaw) Ballard.  He was a graduate of Plainfield HS and attended Earlham College in Richmond, Ind. The deceased was a partner in an Indianapolis Chrysler-Plymouth automobile agency in 1933 and opened a Dodge-Plymouth dealership in Plainfield in 1934. He came to Greencastle in 1936 and opened Putnam Motors on North Indiana the following year. He operated the business until 1976 when he retired to a farm east of Greencastle.  Mr. Ballard was elected mayor of Greencastle in 1942 and served as the city’s chief executive from 1942-45.  He was also a past president of the Greencastle Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club of which he was a member since 1936.  A member of the Gobin Memorial United Methodist Church, Mr. Ballard was a board member of Greencastle Federal Savings & Loan Association for 27 years.  He was also a member of Temple Lodge No 47 F&AM Scottish Rite, Valley of Indianapolis and Murat Shrine, Indianapolis.  In addition, he was active in the local Boy Scouts and Red  Cross.  Survivors include his wife Eleanor (Milam) Ballard; a son, Philip Ballard, Mill Valley, Calif; two daughters, Sara Niles, Ft Wayne and Marilynn Hunter, Greencastle; a dau-in-law, Roberta Ballard, Mill Valley, Calif; two sons-in-law, Richard Niles, Ft Wayne and Emmett Hunter, Greencastle; a sister, Elizabeth  Reedy, Plainfield; and 8 grandchildren: Dustin and Christopher Ballard, California; Robert, Rebecca and Mark Nile, Ft. Wayne and Shelley, Stephanie and Susan Hunter, Greencastle.  He was preceded in death by his parents, a sister, Ruth Milhous and a brother, Charles Ballard. The family has requested that in lieu of flowers, memorials be made to the Walter Ballard Cancer Research Fund in care of Mt. Zion Hospital, San Francisco, Calif 94120 and/or Gobin Memorial United Methodist Church. – kbz