Lester Ball was born on July 7, 1922, the seventh of eleven children, somewhere in McCreary County, Kentucky. Census records conflict on whether he was born in Whitley City or nearby Stearns. His first memories were of a small clapboard house with an outhouse and no running water. Unusually shy, he hoped to live an ordinary rural life. But ordinary it was not.

He was the seventh son of a seventh son … born on the seventh day of the seventh month. He was also the son of a Baptist minister. As a result of these auspicious circumstances, he was thought to be a child prodigy with unique healing powers. He was frequently taken to sick people throughout southern Kentucky and northern Tennessee, where he laid hands on them in hopes of curing the incurable. Lester's extraordinary gentle nature and empathetic manner were very comforting to those suffering and in despair.

Lester's family moved several times, eventually settling somewhere between Mountain Ash, Kentucky and Newcomb, Tennessee, where his father found work at the Jellico Coal Mine. As a teenager, Lester was put to work in the mine to help support the family. Thirty years earlier, a seam of coal had been discovered in the region. It was of the highest grade of coal, free of ash and sulphur. An entire industry had sprung up in the valley and employment at the mines was readily available during those difficult times.       

Lester was twenty years old when fate intervened and he was called out of the mines and notified that he had been drafted to fight for his country. He would become one of the Greatest Generation.

Four of Lester's brothers (Raymond, Hestel, Lloyd, and Leman) also enlisted into the military. Only two of them would survive the war.

Lester Ball served in the European Theatre for two years and twenty days in Company A, 30th Infantry Regiment, in the legendary 3rd Infantry Division ... The Rock of the Marne. He was involved in heavy, front-line combat for nearly two continuous years. During that time, he sustained life-threatening injuries that would serve as daily reminders of those events for the next sixty years. And he would take a number of heroic actions that would earn him the Silver Star, Bronze Star, two Distinguished (Presidential) Unit Citations, the French Croix de Guerre, and Purple Heart for his gallantry. 

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