Billy Sunday - Early Life

Early Life

Billy Sunday was born near Ames, Iowa. His father was the son of German immigrants named Sonntag, who 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 disease at 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, Sunday gained orderly habits, a decent primary education, and the realization that he was a good athlete.

By fourteen, 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 Sunday a good home and the opportunity to attend Nevada High School. Although Sunday never received a high school diploma, by 1880 he was better educated than many of his contemporaries.

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