Biography - John Ballance
JOHN W. BALLANCE, M. D. The medical profession of Johnson county is
represented by some of the most skilled and learned men of this calling to
be found in the state. They have devoted themselves, their time, energy and
lives to the preservation of public health and the alleviation of human
ills, but their work is not always appreciated nor is it always remunerated
as befits the efforts they have expended, yet they have cheerfully accepted
conditions as they are and have continued to carry on the great work without
which no community could thrive. One of the successful physicians and
surgeons of Johnson county who has attained a high place in his profession
is Dr. John W. Ballance, engaged in practice in his home place, the
nourishing city of New Burnside, Illinois, where he was born October 6,
1871.
His father, James H. Ballance, was a son of James H. and a Miss (Farland)
Ballance, and was fifteen years of age when brought to Johnson county from
Kentucky in 1851. He was reared on his father's farm, and at the age of
twenty-one years was married to Jency A. Whiteaker, a sister of Captain
Whiteaker, and daughter of Hall and Elvira (Dameron) Whiteaker, natives of
Tennessee. Hall Whiteaker was a son of Mark Whiteaker, who came to. Southern
Illinois in 1818 and lost his life soon thereafter, while Elvira Dameron was
the daughter of John Dameron, a Revolutionary soldier and one of the early
pioneer settlers of Burnside township, Johnson county. In 1862 James H.
Ballance enlisted in the One Hundred and Twentieth Regiment, Illinois
Volunteer Infantry, but after one and one-half years' service contracted
sciatic rheumatism and was invalided home. He served as first lieutenant of
Company G, under Captain Mark Whiteaker, and was stationed in and around
Memphis, also doing scout duty in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee, and
taking part in a number of battles, including Vicksburg. On his return home
he resumed his farming operations and became a successful and prominent
agriculturist, accumulating one hundred and sixty acres of land, in two
farms of eighty acres each, and died in 1909, his wife passing away when she
was sixty-five years of age. They had a family of seven children, namely:
George, who is a court reporter and resides in Johnson county; Thomas, an
agriculturist of this county; M. W., a well-known dentist of Marion,
Illinois; Adam, a physician of Tulsa, Okla; Earl, a bookkeeper of
Hutchinson, Kansas; Mrs. Sarah Wood; and John W.
John W. Ballance received his preliminary education in the public schools in
the vicinity of his father's farm and the Southern Illinois State Normal
University, at Carbondale, Illinois, and after teaching school for two years
entered Rush Medical College, Chicago, from which he was graduated with the
degree of M. D., in 1896. Beginning the practice of medicine at Harrisburg,
Illinois, he continued there until 1909, as surgeon for the Big Four
Railroad, and in that year came to his home town of New Burnside, which has
since been his field of practice. Dr. Ballance's skill as a surgeon has been
demonstrated in a number of complicated and discouraging cases, and as a
physician he stands among the foremost medical men of this section. He
belongs to the American Medical Association, the Association of Railway
Surgeons and the Illinois State Medical Society, in all of which he is well
and favorably known. As a public-spirited citizen of New Burnside he has
always given of his time and means in supporting progressive movements, and
although he has never allowed his name to be used in connection with public
office he takes a keen interest in matters that pertain to the welfare of
his native county.
Dr. Ballance was married in 1897, to Miss Emma G. Cummings, of Chicago,
daughter of Charles and Abigail (Hadlock) Cummings, of that city, and to
this union there has been born one son, Senn, who is now four years old.
Extracted from 1912 A History of Southern Illinois, volume 2, pages 603-604.
