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Allen family makes big impact in small world
The Allen brothers have been around the world (literally), down the street and up in space. Yet they remain as down-to-earth as you would think two products of Greencastle and Crawfordsville might be.
For it's indeed a small world, brothers David and Joe Allen -- sons of Harriett (Taylor) and Joseph Percival "Perk" Allen III -- agreed in taking some 50 visitors to the Putnam County Museum on a sentimental journey through Allen family history.
"Even though Joe and I are clearly products of the Greencastle environment, we had an air of Crawfordsville behind us," David Allen told a gathering that included family members, Crawfordsville classmates and DePauw University alums.
He detailed how the Allen family influence locally can be traced back to 1888 when the Allen Brothers Store opened at the southwest corner of the square where the Re/Max real estate office currently occupies what most residents remember as the old J.C. Penney store.
One of those Allen brothers was Joseph Percival Allen I, the great-grandfather of David and Joe, who was also known for his surveying prowess.
In fact, David recalled, when his parents later purchased lake property at Monticello, one of its boundaries was along Airport Road, once known as the old Lafayette-Michigan City Road, which Joseph P. Allen I had originally surveyed.
"It's a small world," conceded David Allen, 75 -- whose career has covered practicing medicine, medical research and leadership positions in public health in both Tennessee and Kentucky -- in noting the coincidence of his family enjoying lake property that 100 years earlier was surveyed by his great-grandfather.
He also recalled how it was a small world when brother Joe met his future wife, Bonnie Darling, in Greencastle. She went home and told her father,"I met a boy at DePauw, his name is Joe Allen."
Turns out when her father went to DePauw, he had worked part-time at the Allen Brothers Store and knew of the family and Joe Allen.
"It's a small world," David Allen reiterated, establishing a theme for remarks he and Joe would share.
But that small world would bring them to Greencastle often, even as youngsters growing up in Crawfordsville. One of their favorite spots was their grandparents' house at 636 E. Seminary where a large front-porch swing beckoned for family interaction and a gigantic backyard swingset fueled their adventuresome side.
With that, David flashed a photo of Joe at the wheel of a pedal-car fire truck with David riding in the rear.
"Joe always insisted on being in the driver's seat," the younger Allen noted.
"Joe was always reaching for new heights," he continued, talking about his astronaut brother. "He was climbing anything and everything."
That apparently included a flagpole at the Crawfordsville Country Club, a feat that scared every adult in the place but left little Joe unflustered.
And that attitude, aptitude and altitude has served him well in a NASA career that include two trips aboard the Space Shuttle (Columbia in 1982 and Discovery in 1984).
Joe Allen, who will be 79 at the end of June, can look back in wonder at a career that even spawned a "Jeopardy" question about his exploits in space.
A 1959 DePauw graduate, Allen was selected as a scientist-astronaut by NASA in August 1967 as a member of the second group of scientist-astronauts. In all, he logged 314 hours in space.
That prompted a question from the audience about who has traveled the most, David, who has been to Nepal and various like places of interest around the globe, or Joe.
"When you travel 156 times around the world (as Joe did), that's hard to beat," David replied.
Joe's lengthy career with NASA included ground support for many missions, and was highlighted by his two trips into space. He was mission specialist on both the first fully operational flight of the Shuttle Transportation System (Columbia), and the second flight of Discovery, which completed 127 orbits of the Earth in 192 hours before landing.
Showing a photograph of the Discovery landing, Joe Allen got a bit choked up, saying the spacecraft was "built by the greatest intellectual people on Earth."
Applause ensued.
Another photograph just made astronaut Allen angry. It was a beautiful shot he captured of a fellow astronaut working outside the confines of the shuttle.
Time magazine thought enough of it to use the photo as a magazine cover, crediting the camera work, however, only to "NASA photographer."
"I canceled my subscription," Joe deadpanned.
Laughter ensued.
Sharing what it's like to be launched into space, Allen characterized it "like being in a train wreck for eight minutes."
As an astronaut, Allen helped deployed the first-ever satellites from a space shuttle and then took part in a historic space mission to salvage a pair of communications satellites that had been stranded in useless orbits after a previous deployment.
Allen and Dale Gardner glided outside the shuttle, with Allen propelled by a jet pack ala Buck Rogers. After latching onto the satellite, he maneuvered it until it was grabbed by the shuttle's robot arm.
Amazingly, for one circuit of the globe over 90 minutes, Allen -- who said he weighed about 120 pounds at the time -- held the 1,200-pound satellite aloft while repairs were made before it was manually lowered into the cargo bay.
The shuttle mission provided vivid video memories for Allen to share. The Allen boys combined the space footage with brother David's video from Nepal and gave it to their mother as a Christmas present, appropriately titled, "A Typical Day in the Life of the Allen Brothers."
Meanwhile, back to the small world notion ... overall, the Allens have seen 31 blood relatives attend DePauw, David said.
Their father, Joseph Percival "Perc" Allen III, DPU Class of 1930, was a beloved member of DePauw's economics faculty from 1957 until his retirement in 1975.
"Our dad had a magical career at DePauw," David said, indicating his father was asked to fill in for an accounting course "and stayed 17 years."
Mother Harriett, meanwhile, was a 1928 DPU graduate who by all accounts was her husband's intellectual equal, with an intelligence exhibited even as a precocious 12-year-old in letters to her father (Rev. C. Howard Taylor). David shared some of those with the museum gathering.
Her dad helped unite two fighting factions of the Methodist church in Greencastle into what became Gobin Memorial United Methodist.
"So he was quite an important force here," David allowed.
In fact, if you know where to look, his initials (CHT) adorn the top of a decorative column of the outside of Gobin.
Small world indeed.
"So Greencastle and DePauw University have been part of our lives from Day One," David Allen concluded.