Skip to main content

Mauricette Elaine Ball (Bontemps)

Mauricette Elaine Ball (Bontemps), 84,  of Cuba passed away peacefully at 2:15 p.m. Tuesday, October 30, 2018 in the comfort of her home, with her loving children by her side.

Mauricette was born February 15, 1934 in La Rochelle, France to Roger Jean Francois Bontemps and Lucienne Marie Fernande Percot of Lagord, France.

Mauricette met and married Donald Lee Ball in La Rochelle, France. With barely a command of the English language immigrated to America in 1959.

As a devoted and loving wife, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, Mauricette cherished her family above all. Her marriage to Donald flourished, together they built an upstanding family. Donald passed in January 2015. What God has kept together for over 57 years, he shall keep together for all eternity.

Mauricette, known as Marci to her friends, served her community as a cook at Cuba Elementary School, a housekeeper and caregiver for the elderly, and a self-taught beautician. During the fall harvest she picked apples at Gilliam's Pleasant Row Orchard in Cuba for 17 years. She enjoyed knitting and crocheting blankets and scarves for her grandchildren.

She is survived by four children, Patrick (Lori) Ball of Vista, CA, Ronald (Anita) Ball and Rodger (Julie Foster) both from Cuba, and Michele (Harold Smith) of Canton; seven grandchildren, seven great grandchildren, one step great grandson, and one younger brother, Jean Paul Bontemps of Lagord, France.

Services will be Saturday, November 3, 2018 11:00 a.m. Sedgwick Funeral Homes in Canton, IL. Rev. Kevin Van Tine will officiate.

Comments

Most Popular of All Time

Boy on a Beam

In this special bonus episode, Boy on a Beam. In a world long ago, when the days moved quite slow, Before buzzes and beeps and the fast things we know, A boy sat quite still on a very fine day, Just staring at nothing . . . and thinking away. No tablets! No gadgets! No screens shining bright! No earbuds stuck in from morning till night. No lists, no charts, and no chores to be done. He just sat there thinking—that's quiet-time fun! His name was Young Albert. He sat in his chair, Thinking of things that weren’t really there. “Suppose,” said Young Albert, with eyes open wide, “I ran super fast with my arms by my side! Suppose I ran faster than anyone knew, And caught up to sunshine that zoomed past me—too! If I hopped on its back for a light-speedy ride, What secrets would I find tucked away deep inside?” “Would stars look like sprinkles, all shiny and small? Would UP feel like sideways? Would BIG feel like Tall?” He giggled and wondered and thought, and he dreamed, Till his head fel...

Un-Work the Old-Fashioned Way

🎩   In this special episode. How to Un-Work the Old-Fashioned Way It’s 2026! Yes— this is the year! A different kind of start—you feel it right here? No lists! No demands! No fix-all-your-flaws! No “New You by Tuesday!” No rules! No laws! Those resolutions? Bah! Dusty and dry! We’ve tried fixing everything —so let’s ask why. Why rush and correct and improve and compare, When noticing quietly gets you right there ? So here’s a new project—no charts, no clocks, No boxes to check in your mental inbox. It’s bigger than busy and smaller than grand, It’s called Un-Working —now give me your hand! Un-Working’s not quitting or hiding away, It’s setting things down that shout “Hurry! Hey!” The hustle! The bustle! The faster-than-fast! The gotta-win-now or you’re stuck in the past! That’s the work of Un-Working— plop! —set it free! The titles! The labels! The “Look-At-Me!” The crown that kept sliding and pinching your head— You never looked comfy . . . let’s try this instead: Pick up a tel...

The Thought Experiment–Revisited

In this episode. The Thought Experiment–Revisited The Boy on a Light Beam In 1895, a sixteen-year-old boy did something we rarely allow ourselves to do anymore. He stared into space and let his mind wander. No phone. No notes. No “Optimization Hacks” for his morning routine. Just a question: What would happen if I chased a beam of light—and actually caught it? That boy was Albert Einstein . And that single act of curiosity—a Gedankenexperiment , a thought experiment—eventually cracked open Newton’s tidy universe and rearranged our understanding of time itself. Not bad for an afternoon of daydreaming. Imagine if Einstein had been “productive” instead. He would have logged the light-beam idea into a Notion database, tagged it #CareerGrowth, and then promptly ignored it to attend a forty-five-minute “Sync” about the color of the departmental logo. He’d have a high Efficiency Score—and we’d still be stuck in a Newtonian universe , wondering why the Wi-Fi is slow. In a post I wrote back in...

Sweden Called . . . They Said No.

Have you ever wondered about  the Nobel Prize? Let's look at Where Genius Meets “Wait—Where’s My Medal?” Every October, the Nobel Prizes are announced, and humanity pauses to celebrate the "greatest benefit to mankind." And every year, like clockwork, a specific type of person appears online to complain—at length—that they were robbed. (Well, maybe this year more than most.) The Origin: A Legacy of Guilt The prize exists because Alfred Nobel, a Swedish inventor, had a crisis of conscience. Nobel held 355 patents, but he was most famous for inventing dynamite. When a French newspaper mistakenly published his obituary, calling him the " Merchant of Death, " he decided to buy a better legacy. In his 1895 will, he left the bulk of his massive fortune to establish five prizes (Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, and Peace). Because he was Swedish, he entrusted the selection to Swedish institutions, such as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The only outlier...