1717 on Family Tree Circles

I received this news article about Andrew Jackson Fry and Mary Jane Webster, published in a Stockton, California newspaper, in 1943.
Seated in their pleasant living room Tuesday, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew J. Fry, 234 1/2 South Sixth Street, recalled a ride in a spring wagon through eight snow-blinding miles from Galena, Kansas to the church in Joplin, Missouri, where they were married March 2, 1879. Friends, neighbors and Mrs. Fry's fellow workers from the First Christian Church called to congratulate the couple on their 64th wedding aniversary. Another party that marked the occasion was a family dinner at the home of their daughter, Mrs. Byron R. Cory of Covina, Sunday. Other daughters are Mrs. Alfred A. Pilgrim of Long Beach, Mrs. Raymond K. Griep of Glendale and Mrs. L.L. Kropf of Alhambra. The pair also have five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
Born in Nashville, Tennessee, July 26 1863, Mrs. Fry came from a long line of ministers. With her family she later moved to Springfield, Missouri, where her grandmother endowed the Christian Church of that city. For the past two years she has been a member and active worker of the First Christian Church of Alhambra.
Mr. Fry, 84, is a native of Coatsburg, Illinois and at the age of six moved with his family to the wild frontier that was Galena before the treaty with the Cherokee Indians was signed.
The discovery of lead in that rich mining section is attributed to Mr. Fry. While playing baseball on the Hickory Flats baseball diamond it is said, he accidentally kicked the soil up and exposed a shiny object which on inspection was proved to be lead.
The Frys farmed in Galena for 51 years, coming to California in 1930. They settled first in Glendale, moving to Alhambra last year. Active for their extreme ages, the pair are enthusiasts about Southern California and vow they'll celebrate there 75th anniversay here!

AA Pilgrim was Born about 1879 in Galena, Cherokee, Kansas. He had no arms below his elbows and no legs below his knees. Yet, he was a very capable man and our GREAT Great Grandfather.
An article appeared in a San Francisco newspaper about 1915 entitled
"Willie Pilgrim?s Optimism" I don't have the whole article, but I share what part I do have:

"Here is a man who was born without hands or legs, handicapped as few men would care to be, and yet by the sunshine of his nature and his beautiful and fine optimism has won the hearts of everyone on the Joy Zone of the San Francisco exposition...... a crack rifle shot, can play baseball with as much dexterity and skill as a weathered big-leaguer, is an artistic penman and cartoonist of no mean attainment. And all of these accomplishments he brought about by his own determination to overcome the mean trick that nature played when she denied him his arms and legs.