Treasure Chest Thursday-Advertisement

William Edward Ball

ca 1938 Salem Statesman or Capitol Journal

I would love to know what prompted this promotion of Van-Tage by my great grandfather.  Giving out this kind of information these days, especially very public would definitely be considered as TMI (too much information).  Maybe because medical care wasn't on the level as it is now and people were trying any kind of remedy to relieve their annoying symptoms.  I wonder if he really becamed "cured" or was helping out his local neighborhood pharmacy.  I tried to research out this product, but was unable to locate any information on it. I stumbled onto this newspaper clipping in my mother's things and was quite amused by the exaggerating hawking of this not so glamourous product!

William Edward Ball was born in 1885 in Manton, Wexford County, Michigan.  He eventually worked his way with his father and sister to Ellis County, Oklahoma to secure homesteads.  He married Nora Ellen Baley there and sold their homestead where they headed with my grandmother, Zelma to Salem, Oregon in 1913.  He became a wall painter hanger and painting contractor until death took him away in 1943, just 5 years after this ad came out to a heart attack.