William Ashley Sunday Sr. (1862 - 1935)

Born 19 Nov 1862 in Ames, Story, Iowa, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Helen Amelia (Thompson) Sunday — married 5 Sep 1888 in William and Ellen Thompson's home in Chicago, Illinois, USA

Died 6 Nov 1935 at age 72 in Chicago, Cook, Illinois, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Deena Cross [send private message]

Wikidata: Item Q366141

Biography

William Sunday Sr. is Notable.

William Sunday Sr. has German Roots.

Billy Sunday was an evangelist, and played baseball for the Chicago White Sox in the 1880's.

Billy Sunday was born near Ames, Iowa. His father, William Sunday, was the son of German immigrants named Sonntag, who had anglicized their name to "Sunday" when they settled in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. William Sunday was a bricklayer who worked his way to Iowa, where he married Mary Jane Corey, daughter of "Squire" Martin Corey, a local farmer, miller, blacksmith, and wheelwright. William Sunday enlisted in the Iowa Twenty-Third Volunteer Infantry on August 14, 1862. He died four months later of pneumonia at an army camp in Patterson, Missouri, five weeks after the birth of his youngest son, William Ashley. Mary Jane Sunday and her children moved in with her parents for a few years, and young Billy became close to his grandparents and especially his grandmother. Mary Jane Sunday later remarried, but her second husband soon deserted the family.

When Billy Sunday was ten years old, his impoverished mother sent him and an older brother to the Soldiers' Orphans Home in Glenwood, Iowa, and later to the Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home in Davenport, Iowa. At the orphanage, Billy Sunday gained orderly habits, a decent primary education, and the realization that he was a good athlete.

By fourteen, Billy Sunday was shifting for himself. In Nevada, Iowa, he worked for Colonel John Scott, a former lieutenant governor, tending Shetland ponies and doing other farm chores. The Scotts provided Billy Sunday a good home and the opportunity to attend Nevada High School. Although he never received a high school diploma, by 1880 he was better educated than many of his contemporaries.

In 1880, Billy Sunday relocated to Marshalltown, Iowa, where, because of his athleticism, he had been recruited for a fire brigade team. In Marshalltown, he worked at odd jobs, competed in fire brigade tournaments, and played for the town baseball team. In 1882, with Billy Sunday in left field, the Marshalltown team defeated the state champion Des Moines team 13–4.

Adrian "Cap" Anson, gave him an enthusiastic account of Sunday's prowess. In 1883, on Anson's recommendation, A.G. Spalding, president of the Chicago White Stockings, signed Billy Sunday to the defending National League champions.

Billy Sunday struck out four times in his first game, and there were seven more strikeouts and three more games before he got a hit. During his first four seasons with Chicago, he was a part-time player, taking Mike "King" Kelly's place in right field when Kelly served as catcher.

Sunday's personality, demeanor, and athleticism made him popular with the fans, as well as with his teammates. Manager Cap Anson considered Sunday reliable enough to make him the team's business manager, which included such duties as handling the ticket receipts and paying the team's travel expenses.

In 1887, when Kelly was sold to another team, Billy Sunday became Chicago's regular right fielder, but an injury limited his playing time to fifty games. During the following winter Sunday was sold to the Pittsburgh Alleghenys for the 1888 season. He was their starting center fielder, playing a full season for the first time in his career. The crowds in Pittsburgh took to Billy Sunday immediately; one reporter wrote that "the whole town is wild over Sunday." Although Pittsburgh had a losing team during the 1888 and 1889 seasons, Billy Sunday performed well in center field and was among the league leaders in stolen bases.

Billy Sunday remained a prominent baseball fan throughout his life. He gave interviews and opinions about baseball to the popular press; he frequently umpired minor league and amateur games in the cities where he held revivals; and he attended baseball games whenever he could, including a 1935 World Series game two months before he died.

On a Sunday afternoon in Chicago, during either the 1886 or 1887 baseball season, Billy Sunday and several of his teammates were out on the town on their day off. At one street corner, they stopped to listen to a gospel preaching team from the Pacific Garden Mission. Attracted by the hymns he had heard his mother sing, Billy Sunday began attending services at the mission. After talking with a former society matron who worked there, Sunday – after some struggle on his part – decided to become a Christian. He began attending the fashionable Jefferson Park Presbyterian Church, a congregation handy to both the ball park and his rented room.

Although he socialized with his teammates and sometimes gambled, Billy Sunday was never a heavy drinker. In his autobiography, he said, "I never drank much. I was never drunk but four times in my life. ... I used to go to the saloons with the baseball players, and while they would drink highballs and gin fizzes and beer, I would take lemonade." Following his conversion, Billy Sunday denounced drinking, swearing, and gambling, and he changed his behavior, which was recognized by both teammates and fans. Shortly thereafter, Billy Sunday began speaking in churches and at YMCA's

In 1886, Billy Sunday was introduced at Jefferson Park Presbyterian Church to Helen Amelia "Nell" Thompson, daughter of the owner of one of Chicago's largest dairy products businesses. Both had serious on-going relationships that bordered on engagements. Furthermore, Nell Thompson had grown to maturity in a much more privileged environment than had Billy Sunday, and her father strongly discouraged the courtship, viewing all professional baseball players as "transient ne'er-do-wells who were unstable and destined to be misfits once they were too old to play." Nevertheless, Billy Sunday pursued and eventually married her. On several occasions, he said, "She was a Presbyterian, so I am a Presbyterian. Had she been a Catholic, I would have been a Catholic – because I was hot on the trail of Nell." Mrs. Thompson had liked Billy Sunday from the start and weighed in on his side, and Mr. Thompson finally relented. The couple was married on September 5, 1888.

• Fact: Residence (1900) ED 319 Precinct 20 Chicago city Ward 11, Cook, Illinois, United States
• Fact: Residence (1910) Chicago Ward 20, , Illinois
• Fact: Residence (1920) Wayne, Kosciusko, Indiana, United States
• Fact: Obituary (07 Nov 1935) Hull, Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom
• Fact: Burial (9 November 1935) Forest Park, Cook, Illinois, United States
• Fact: Residence Winona Lake, Kosciusko, Indiana

Sources

• "Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org : modified 12 March 2018, 18:59), entry for William Ashley Sunday Jr(PID https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/4:1:LCX5-3ZZ); contributed by various users.

• Billy Sunday's WIkipedia's encyclopedia entry

• Find A Grave: Memorial #1007

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Deena Cross for creating Sunday-96 on 16 Dec 2015.

Thank you to Dave McNally for adding sources for Sunday-96.

Click the Changes tab for the details on contributions by Deena, Jack, Dave, Nicolas, Luke and others.