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Few artifacts survive that deal either directly or indirectly with Billy Sunday’s childhood. Such a paucity is most certainly predictable considering the impoverished setting in which he was raised. The written facts surrounding his childhood tell of a long chain of broken familial bonds, and the absence of material culture representing this part of his life may be used to reinforce this traditional interpretation. Typically in an archaeological setting, one relies on both the presence of unique artifacts with known dates as well as the absence of commonly found artifacts to assist in interpreting surrounding material that may not carry precise information.1 These techniques may be applied to historic collections, if it is reasonable to assume that the collection, like an archaeological site, has remained largely undisturbed. Indeed, while such an occurrence is very rare, Mount Hood, the Billy and Helen Sunday home in Winona Lake, Indiana, is just such a case. After moving their belongings from Chicago to Winona Lake in 1911, the Sundays added to their possessions, but precious few items were removed. In her last will and testament, Helen Sunday requested that the Mount Hood home remain intact as a shrine to her husband’s memory, which perpetuated the integrity of this time capsule. While a few changes in interior room colors or furniture layouts were made over the last ninety years (all of which were easily reversible), the artifact collection has remained intact. Accordingly, with the integrity of this rare collection established, we may proceed with appropriate methods of interpretation. Farm Boy William Ashley Sunday When the Devil robs a boy, the last thing he takes from him is what he learned at his mother’s knee.—Billy Sunday Speaks! William Ashley Sunday was born on a farm in Story County, Iowa, November 19, 1862, only thirty-three days before his father died of an The web of this nation is made from the thread spun in the home. –billy sunday speaks! Chapter 1 Homespun and Cashmere undetermined illness while serving in Iowa’s Twenty-third Volunteer Infantry Regiment of the Union Army.2 Billy was sickly and too weak to even sit up or walk on his own for nearly three years, until a traveling doctor gave him a potion made from local roots, leaves, and berries that brought about a complete physical turnaround. Tragedy became a way of life for him during his childhood. In the first ten years of his life, Billy experienced the death of his father, his half-sister’s death in a tragic bon- fire accident, and the deaths of four aunts, an uncle, and his beloved grandmother, all from tuberculosis. His oldest brother, Albert, was kicked in the head by a mule and eventually had to be institutionalized.3 This wave of hardship and death would leave a lasting mark on Billy that helped to shape his later views on salvation and heaven. Billy’s sorrows continued in 1874 at the age of twelve, when he and his older brother Ed were sent to the Iowa Soldier’s Orphan Home.4 Some mystery surrounds the sending of these two boys to the orphanage since Billy’s grandfather, Squire Martin Cory, lived near the family and was financially able to support the small family. Yet he stood by and allowed the two boys to be sent 130 miles away to the Glenwood orphanage . Recent scholarship has pieced together the most likely scenario that led to this family hostility. A good deal of conflict apparently existed between Martin Cory and his daughter, Mary Jane (Jennie), Billy’s mother (fig. 2). Jennie’s second husband, James M. Heizer, had financially abused his position as guardian of the Sunday boys. He not only confiscated their Civil War pension appropriations but also placed Cory liable for the debt since Cory had agreed to serve as Heizer’s bondsman when Heizer had become the children’s guardian. When Heizer abandoned the family in 1871, Cory was left holding the bag for the misappropriated pensions and other debts. The combination of monetary strife and his frustration with his daughter’s choices in men probably led to the unfortunate situation of the Sunday children being caught in the middle.5 The result of this family tension, coupled with Jennie Cory’s inability to support her children, was the sending of her two youngest sons to an orphanage for the offspring of fallen Union soldiers. While the separation from his mother was traumatic, it...

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