Time Machine: Billy Sunday

The Rev. William Ashley 'Billy' Sunday, a famous evangelist, was born in Ames in 1862. He never knew his father, who died in the Civil War.

When his mother's efforts to keep the family together failed, Sunday spent part of his childhood in homes for soldiers' orphans. After his 14th birthday, he headed to Nevada, Iowa, where he worked for Col. John Scott, a former lieutenant governor who sent the teen to high school.

Sunday then landed a job as a locomotive firefighter on the Northwestern Railroad and played baseball in Marshalltown. Sunday was credited with leading the Marshalltown team to a state championship over Des Moines.

Marshalltown native 'Cap' Adrian Anson of the Chicago White Stockings (later the Chicago Cubs) was paying attention. He arranged for Sunday to try out with the club. Sunday proved himself to be the fastest runner in the National League.

After five years in Chicago and three league championships, he was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he played for three years.

In 1886, Sunday joined a group of young people on their way to the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. After about a half-dozen meetings, he went down the aisle to accept Christ. Newspapers immediately picked up the story. Sunday worried how his fellow ballplayers would react, but they treated him well. Catcher Mike Kelley told him, 'Religion ain't my long suit, but if anybody knocks you, I'll knock them.'

Sunday had just signed a contract with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1890 when he changed his mind and accepted a job with the YMCA. Released from his contract, he began working for $1,000 a year instead of baseball's $350 a week. His new job brought him to Cedar Rapids' YMCA in January 1893 for the dedication of new marble baths, a natatorium and other improvements made with the gifts of Mr. and Mrs. C.B. Soutter in memory of their son, who died in an accident with a streetcar.

'Mr. Sunday, who stands square on his feet and looks like an actor, and is rather distinguished in his appearance, captured his audience from the start,' reported The Gazette. 'Eloquently describing the Savior's love, man's helplessness and impotence, he played upon his audience as a skillful player upon his harp, and as a result many a man saw the necessity for a savior and acted upon it.'

The YMCA continued to hold a special place in Sunday's heart for the rest of his life.

He began what became known as his 'sawdust trail' in Garner in 1896. He was working for Dr. Wilbur Chapman, an evangelist, when Chapman left for a church in Philadelphia. Out of a job, Sunday accepted an invitation from the ministers of Garner to hold a revival in the Garner opera house. The eight-day revival was successful, and he preached in Iowa for more than seven years.

Sunday appeared in a Cedar Rapids tent revival in September 1897. He came back in October, fresh from a revival in Grundy Center, to an appreciative crowd at the Second Presbyterian Church on Fifth Street.

Sunday's major appearance in Cedar Rapids came in October 1909. His advance man, Albert P. Gill, arrived in September to begin construction of a huge tabernacle on a site near Quaker Oats. Many people were skeptical that the tabernacle could be raised by the first Sunday in October, but volunteer labor began work, and on Sept. 22, they gathered to raise the roof. The building stood 240 by 140 feet. It required about 140,000 feet of lumber to complete.

"Never before has Cedar Rapids seen a preacher that raced up and down the pulpit, gesticulating with hands, face and feet, dancing off on to the press table..."

- The Gazette

reported 1909

With the interior enclosed, work began on the stage at the west end of the tabernacle, designed to seat more than 700 singers. The speaker's platform was 40 feet from the rear of the building, six feet high and 14 feet long. The main platform for reporters' tables and preachers' chairs was three feet high and extended to the side and rear of the speaker's platform. The northeast corner was a children's nursery and the opposite corner was a room for travelers to eat or rest. The floor was covered with wood shavings to absorb sound.

On Oct. 8, when Sunday arrived, Gill left to begin work on the next field of operation.

The home of Sen. S.L. Dows was Sunday's headquarters for his nearly two-month stay in Cedar Rapids. He tried to spend a few hours playing golf at the Cedar Rapids Country Club every morning. He said golf helped keep him in shape and relieved stress.

The revival opened on Sunday, Oct. 10.

The Gazette reported, 'Never before has Cedar Rapids seen a preacher that raced up and down the pulpit, gesticulating with hands, face and feet, dancing off on to the press table, and then tearing back to the opposite side, dragging a chair behind him, pounding the chair with his fist until it seemed he must break the bones of his hand, sitting down for a moment as he imitated some character described in his sermon, putting one foot on a chair and keeping the other on the floor, leaping upon the chair to ram home some particularly heavy charge ——and all the time preaching such gospel that the most fastidious could not find a flaw in its orthodoxy.'

Two days before the six-week campaign ended was Sunday's 47th birthday. The local ministers' association presented him with a dozen white chrysanthemums and a silver-handled silk umbrella as tokens of appreciation. Highly moved, it took Sunday several moments to compose himself before he could respond.

Sunday returned to Cedar Rapids in July 1916 as the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Shaver. He preached at First Christian Church.

Sunday was credited with having more than a million people accept Christ in his 39 years of preaching. He died of a heart attack in Chicago in 1935 at the age of 72.