Billy Sunday

William Ashley Billy Sunday was an American athlete who, after being a popular outfielder in baseballs National League during the 1880s, became the most celebrated and influential American evangelist during the first two decades of the 20th century.

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 TwentyThird 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.

Source: Wikipedia