Mount Union borough, Cassville borough

The McClain Doctors of Mount Union

Dr. Charles Arthur Roe McClain was born near New Grenada on September 21, 1875, the son of Samuel H. and Eveline Shore McClain. He graduated from the Medico Chirurgical College in Philadelphia in the spring of 1898 and went into practice at Cassville that July. He stayed until 1903, when he came to Mount Union as successor to Dr. A. R. McCarthy. His wife, Alice Meta Hunter, was a daughter of Dr. Robert I. Hunter of Wells Valley in Fulton County. The 1909 history of Mount Union counts four children in the family, among them a son named Fred, names the doctor as one of the borough's councilmen, and says he used an automobile in his practice. The Franklin Institute's report on its museum, printed in July 1951, lists a 1918 McIntosh X-ray machine from him among the exhibits received during the year. On Sunday, September 20, 1953, at the First Methodist Church of Mount Union, community organizations held a program honoring his 50 years of service, and the townspeople gave him a 1953 sedan, one day before his 78th birthday. He died on November 29, 1966, at the age of 91, according to the Pennsylvania death index.

His son Fred Hunter McClain Sr. became a dentist. Find a Grave gives his dates as December 10, 1896, and February 2, 1978. The state's printed register of dentists lists him at Mount Union in 1943 and at Lewistown in 1950, and the Pennsylvania Dental Journal of March 1960 names him president of the Mifflin-Juniata Dental Society. An essay in the 2009 book On the Home Front recalls that Mount Union held a blackout drill in the spring of 1942 and that he was appointed chief air-raid warden for Huntingdon County that fall.

His son, Dr. Fred H. McClain Jr., was born in Mount Union on December 6, 1920. He graduated from Juniata College in 1941 and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1944, interned at Allentown Hospital, and served in the Army Medical Corps until he was discharged as a captain in 1947. The Juniata College alumni bulletin for fall 1947 reported that his grandfather had announced the younger doctor's association with him in medical work at Mount Union. He practiced in Mount Union from 1947 until he retired in December 1987. He served on the Mount Union school board from 1961 to 1967 and was president of the Huntingdon County Medical Society in 1952 and 1963. He was physician to the Mount Union schools' athletic teams from 1961 and for 25 years was clinician of the state Health Department's Well-Baby Clinic in Mount Union. The Knights of Columbus council in Mount Union named him Citizen of the Year for 1978. His obituary says he became ill while working at the Mount Union Medical Center and died on October 11, 1989, and that he, his father and his grandfather had provided medical care to area residents for nearly nine decades.

Checked against the record. We read Dr. Charles McClain's entries in the 1909 Mount Union history and the 1897 Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia, the 1966 death index, the Juniata College alumni bulletins, the state's printed dentist registers and the Pennsylvania Dental Journal, on the page. Much of the younger Dr. McClain's record comes from his 1989 obituary as transcribed on Find a Grave, and Fred Hunter McClain Sr.'s birth and death dates come from Find a Grave alone. The air-raid warden appointment comes from a 2009 essay that we read only through a text search, and we have not seen a 1942 newspaper report of it. The sources differ in two places. The 1897 encyclopedia and the 1937 county sesquicentennial book spell the doctor's middle name Roe, and Find a Grave spells it Rowe. The obituary calls the younger doctor a third-generation physician who joined his father in 1947, while the 1947 alumni bulletin says he joined his grandfather. The story follows the bulletin, which was written at the time. We have seen claims that he was a deputy coroner and an administrator of the medical center, but we found no record of either, so neither is stated.

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