Pastor Chuck Winter of the Sunnyside (WA) Grace Brethren Church, has supplied his local newspaper with “the rest of the story” from a short piece they ran on Alva J. McClain. Here is an excerpt–to read the entire article click here.
In the Nov. 18 edition of the Daily Sun News, in the weekly column “Over the Shoulder” there appeared this item under 100 Years Ago (1911): “Sunnyside Nursery Company shipped 30,000 Christmas trees to Oregon, more than doubling the nursery’s business from the previous year.”
I thought it would be of interest for DSN readers to hear “the rest of the story.” This nursery company was started in 1909 by Walter S. McClain and H.M. Lichty and employed one Alva J. McClain, who became skilled in raising, pruning and budding apple trees.
Alva was 20 years of age when he began working for his father and history would note than those were the years when he was a “tad on the wild side.”
This was the same Alva J. McClain who would attend the University of Washington and became both the school’s quarterback and speedy member of the baseball team. But God had Alva J. in His sights for a far more important future.
In 1912 the pastor of the Sunnyside Brethren Church invited Evangelist Louis S. Bauman to hold meetings. Alva and his wife, Jo, attended on a Monday evening and heard a message on Biblical prophecy. Both husband and wife then and there made a commitment to Jesus Christ as Savior.