Florida Grandmother Poses in Staged Photos for For-Sale House
— -- An 86-year-old Florida grandmother is a viral star after her granddaughter shared photos of her humorously posing in her home on Twitter.
Yolie Ball, who lives with her husband, Don, in Davenport, Florida, says her phone has been ringing off the hook since Thursday night when her 15-year-old granddaughter, Makenzie Ball, called to tell her she was now a viral star.
“She called me last night at 7:30 and said, ‘Grandma, I’m going to tell you something,’” Ball told ABC News. “I did something and I don’t know if it’s going to be good or bad.”
What Makenzie, a high school student from Virginia, did was post photos on Twitter of her grandmother popping up in pictures taken by Ball’s daughter to be used to help sell the couple’s home.
Makenzie’s tweet, posted Wednesday, has now been retweeted over 14,000 times.
“I thought the pictures of my grandma were hilarious and I wanted to share,” Makenzie told ABC News by email. “I didn't expect them to get so popular. I thought like 40 RTs from my friends MAX.”
The photos show Ball casually sipping coffee on the lanai, poking her head out of a bedroom, reading a magazine in the living room and leaning on a kitchen counter. They were taken by the Balls’ daughter, Sandra, when she visited them from the family’s native Massachusetts last month.
The couple is trying to sell their Florida home to move closer to their other daughter in Nashville, Tennessee, and took new photos of their home for a real estate guide.
“The first picture, the one where I have my head sticking out of the bedroom door, I was going to pull back and Sandra said, ‘No, mom, stay right there,’” Ball said. “It went from there.
“She’d say, ‘Oh, lean on the counter,’ or, ‘Go sit on the lanai,’” Ball recalled. “It was just a joke. We’re always doing silly stuff.”
Ball describes herself as a “dinosaur” when it comes to technology but she did know enough to know what her granddaughter meant by Twitter when she called.
Though the response has been “overwhelming” for the retiree and her husband, it is all in good fun for the tight-knit family that includes a son, Makenzie’s dad, in addition to their two daughters.
“We’re getting a kick out of it,” Ball said.
