Eve Ball (1890-1984)

The listening came before the books. Ball moved to Ruidoso in 1942, to a house on the path Apaches walked from the Mescalero reservation into town, and she found she learned more by setting out water and listening than by asking. She took notes in shorthand rather than recording, eventually interviewing sixty-seven people, among them Asa Daklugie, son of Juh and nephew of Geronimo, who gave her the war club he had hidden through twenty-seven years as a prisoner. Publishers passed on her first book, In the Days of Victorio, so she paid to print it herself in 1970.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Eve Ball (1890-1984) Author and Preservationist A pioneer in the preservation of the history of people in Southeastern New Mexico, Eve wrote over 150 articles and numerous books chronicling Mescalero and Chiricahua Apaches, Anglo and Hispanic settlers. Her honesty, patience and determination to learn from them, won the confidence of the Apache elders, saving oral histories certain to be lost without her. Official Scenic Historic Marker New Mexico Historic Women Marker Initiative The New Mexico Historic Women Marker Initiative was founded in 2005 by members of the New Mexico Women's Forum in a statewide effort to recognize women's contributions to New Mexico history on the state's Official Scenic Historic Markers. The Initiative ensures that women's diverse histories will be remembered and told, and will inspire and provide a guide for future generations. The 2006 Legislature funded the project.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Smokey Bear Historical Park — 5.8 mi
  The small park in Capitan where the living Smokey Bear is buried, a cub found clinging to a burned tree in the Capitan Mountains in 1950, six years after the cartoon was invented.
• Lincoln Historic Site — 6.0 mi
  One street of adobe in the Bonito valley kept much as it was in the 1870s, where the Lincoln County War was fought over who would supply Fort Stanton and the Mescalero agency.

More markers nearby

• Lucy Lepper Shaw — 2.6 mi
• Raton Ranch — 2.6 mi
• Fort Stanton — 2.8 mi
• Capitán — 5.2 mi