Lucy Ball was the city's first trained librarian at the Grand Rapids Public Library.    She joined the library staff in 1886.  Her greatest achievement was the deposit libraries and out of it grew the branch libraries system.
    She was the first woman newspaper reporter in Michigan.  Her older brother, F. W. Ball, became editor of the Daily Democrat and she worked with him as a reporter.
    When she went to Europe as a 12-year-old, with her parents, John and Mary Ball, with her two elder sisters, she attended school in Geneva for two years.  Her interest in French continued throughout her lifetime.
    After retiring, although she was in failing health, she traveled a good deal.  During her last years, her eyesight failed almost completely.  Within a year of her death, she took up Braille in order to read Shakespeare and the classics.

    She had a passion for learning and for history which was lived out in the library and in her writing.  She worked under difficult circumstances to create an operational public library.

    She wrote a biography of her father's life.