His paternal grandfather, Franz Ulrich Bohli (1748–1810), emigrated from Voralberg, Austrian Empire to Schönenwerd working as a mason for a manufacturer of silk ribbons.

[5] After initial difficulties the business began to flourish and in the early 1870s he established sales organizations in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Montevideo, (Uruguay) and Paris, (France).

[4][6] By 1880 Bally had transformed Schönenwerd from a sleepy farm village to an industrial center offering employment to hundreds of workers from the surrounding area, ultimately developing it into one of the w’s leading shoe manufacturing enterprises.

He and his wife opened a special education school for girls, a kindergarten, an old-age home and a public swimming facility at the bordering Aare river.

He built homes for workers and converted a flood region of the Aare in town into a luscious, publicly accessible park.