Young evangelist Mary Agnes Vichestain on a 1926 visit to Tacoma in full preaching pose. Described as a modern girl preaching the old-fashioned gospel, Pittsburgh's Mary Agnes Vichestain, age 18, preached to a full house at the Gospel Tabernacle on July 8, 1926. Accompanied by her newspaper publisher father, V.H. Vichestain, Miss Vichestain stopped in Tacoma on her way to the West Coast. Her father reminisced that her favorite occupation as a child was to corner a family member and vigorously preach. Her first public appearance as a preacher came at age 9; she has since then spoken to audiences as large as 25,000. Miss Vichestain devotes most of her efforts to work in missions in order to help the less fortunate find salvation.