campaign buttons | 1980-1995

2016.1

Donor: Erica Ball

Erica Esther Weisz (Ricky) was born in Vienna in 1937. Her parents emigrated to Trinidad in 1938, and when she was ten years old, the family moved to Passaic, New Jersey, where she attended high school before attending Brandeis University.

In 1967, after a tragic school bus accident killed their son Jonathan, Ricky successfully advocated to ensure greater school bus safety measures. Their ‘no standees’ initiative is now state law, and many communities employ the school bus monitor concept she promoted.

Ricky Ball entered politics by way of the League of Women Voters (LWV), which she joined in 1967 and in which she was a driving force for 21 years. She served as President of the Natick LWV for two terms, playing a major role in the formation of the Lake Cochituate Watershed Association, and serving on the League’s State Legislative Committee from 1972 to 1974. From 1968 to 1980 she represented the League on the South Middlesex Opportunity Council (SMOC), an agency that she later served as President (1974-1975) and Vice President (1976-1977).

In 1975 she successfully campaigned for a seat on the Natick Board of Selectmen, and became the first woman in the town’s 350-year history to serve in that capacity. She has been a Natick Town Meeting Member since 1973. Ball served on the Natick Ad-Hoc Day Care Committee, initiating and coordinating efforts to offer extended day childcare in Natick.

An inveterate political campaigner, Ball has actively participated in and volunteered for countless campaigns, including her husband Jay’s campaign for Natick’s Board of Selectmen in 1997. She was a founder of The Center of the Arts, a growing and vibrant venue for the performing and visual arts, located in downtown Natick, and continues to remain actively involved as a member of the Board of Directors, focusing on Development. In 2010 Ball ran for a position on the Board of Commissioners for the Natick Housing Authority, and continues to serve on the board.

Ball collected most of these buttons in the 1980s during and after her campaigns. If you are a Natick resident you might remember many of these campaigns.

Ricky Ball’s numerous contributions to the Natick community, infrastructure, and people are reflected in The Erica Ball Personal Papers Collection housed in the archives at the Natick Historical Society. The collection contains correspondence, photographs, news clippings, notes, and ephemera related to Ball’s extensive work in local government and service organizations, including the town of Natick’s Board of Selectmen, League of Women Voters, and Housing Authority, among others.