A capacity crowd
of over 400 packed the former Pearson-Allen Funeral Home located at 223 SE.
122nd, on Feb. 9 to attend Masonic burial services and a Celebration of Life
service for Thomas N. Allen, who died Jan. 18 at age 89.Postal director, funeral director, Mason,
Rotarian, DeMolay Thomas N. Allen dies at 89
Sean P. Nelson
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
A capacity crowd
of over 400 packed the former Pearson-Allen Funeral Home located at 223 SE.
122nd, on Feb. 9 to attend Masonic burial services and a Celebration of Life
service for Thomas N. Allen, who died Jan. 18 at age 89.
“If there was one word that described Tom, it was charming, absolutely charming”, recalled Tom’s daughter-in-law Paula Allen. “He had a way of making you feel important. People were competing for his attention because he was so charming,” she said.
Allen was born Oct. 2, 1912 in what was then the city of Arleta. It is now Portland. He went to work during the Depression to help support his family because his grandfather could not find any work. He graduated from Benson Polytechnic High School in 1930. While in high school he joined Palastine Chapter, Order of DeMolay. By the end of his DeMolay career he was a Past Master Councilor who received the prestigious Legion of Honor Degree, a degree patterned after the orders of knighthood awarded for service to humanity by the Order’s International Supreme Council.
Allen entered the U.S. Postal Service as a temporary substitute clerk in 1936. He retired as Assistant Personnel Director of the Seattle Region with a rating of G.S. 15. Loaned to the Japanese government after World War II, Allen helped rehabilitate what was then a non-existent postal system. Emperor Hirohito recognized him for his efforts by conferring on him the Order of the Sacred Treasure.
One person he worked with there was named Lisa, who he wrote to afterward with letters he signed, Grandpa Tom. Lisa’s granddaughter, a woman he never met, sent him wedding pictures recently signed, “To Grandpa Tom, Paula Allen said.
“Dad had a remarkable philosophy. You never badmouthed an organization. You joined it, became head of it and changed it,” said Allen’s son Jack, himself a Chevalier and Legionnaire in DeMolay and a Mason. Allen was a President of the Board of Directors for Volunteers of America, President of Northeast Portland Rotary, Chairman of the Rotary Foundation and a Royal Rosarian.
He was a member of Friendship Masonic Lodge and the Scottish Rite Bodies of Freemasonry in Tokyo, Japan, where he attended lodge with General Douglas MacArthur, who signed his membership patent. He was a Past Grand Royal Patron for the state’s Order of the Amaranth, a Past Worthy Patron of his local chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, Chairman of the Masonic and Eastern Star Home of Oregon’s Home Endowment Fund, and a member of the Supreme Board of Directors of the White Shrine of Jerusalem.
His wife Betty of Portland; his son Jack and family of Silverton; his grandson David and family of Gresham; his granddaughter Julie of Silverton; his niece, Lois of Lincoln City; and his nephew Warren of California survive him.
The family suggests contributions in Thomas Allen’s memory be made to a charity of your choice.