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From A Treasure: The Family of James Henry Allen
Date of Birth 29 June 1925 in St. Paul, Minnesota. I am the first of two children born to Claude Allen and Anna Jensen. I grew up in St. Paul, graduating from Como Park Elementary School. A favorite summer memory of my adolescent years was visiting farms of my Jensen cousins. While in high school I spent summers canoeing in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area with the YMCA and at the family cabin in the Superior National Forest near Grand Marais, Minnesota. I graduated from the University of Minnesota High School in 1943. I joined the U.S. Navy at that time and entered the V12 program where I spent 16 months studying at the University of Minnesota. I then graduated from Midshipman School in Chicago, Advanced Line Officer Training School in Miami, and joined the Pacific Fleet in 1945, sailing from San Francisco on the aircraft carrier Hornet. I joined the ship to which I had been assigned, a destroyer escort, in Okinawa. The highlight of that trip was a visit to Shanghai, China. That was a most cosmopolitan city with many Russians who had fled Russia during the Communists takeover in 1917. The war had just ended and there was great joy and optimism there. I was discharged from the Navy in 1946, and resumed my college education at the University of Minnesota. I earned my MB in 1950, and my MD in 1951, following an internship. I practiced medicine in Montevideo, Minnesota, a town of about 5500, from 1951 to 1987. I married Marjorie Kirschner in 1949. Marjorie was an honors graduate of the University of Minnesota with a bachelors degree in Journalism and a master's degree in International Studies. We had three daughters, Victoria, Kathleen and Elizabeth. An interesting memory of medicine in my early years was having a second floor office with 19 steps. It was amazing to see patients with heart attacks, strokes, and lower limb fractures make it to the office. I once took a pig as partial payment of a bill. Many patients would come to the house to find me after office hours. We became interested in horses, and bought a farm near town, moving to a new home there in 1966. That same year Marjorie developed multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow. She was given 18 months to live. Six months later, after prayer by a Baptist evangelist, she underwent a marvelous spiritual transformation. Her cancer came under control, and she was given ten more productive years of life. We adopted a Korean orphan, Roberta, in 1974. That same year we were attending a horse show in Columbus, Ohio. Marjorie was not doing well from the cancer at that time. Amazingly our hotel was next door to a Lutheran church, and I had become acquainted with the pastor only four months earlier. 24 hours after a prayer time with him I was walking down a street on the fair grounds when I had an incredible experience. I felt goose bumps all over. I felt a lightness, as though I were walking three feet off the ground. The Grace of God filled me up in a marvelous way, and I have not been the same since. Marjorie died in 1976 from her cancer. In 1977, I married LaRae McLaughlin of McAllen, Texas whom I had met through a friend who had recently married one of my patients. Although we barely knew one another when we were married, Divine Providence brought us together, and the marriage has worked out beautifully. I retired from active practice in 1987. I am very active in church and have been on short term medical missionary outreaches (including Mexico, the Caribbean, Lithuania and Africa) each winter since 1987. LaRae joined me on three of those trips. LaRae has her masters degree in counseling and the two of us do a lot of counseling through our church. I stay very active physically, swimming, biking, hiking and occasional cross country skiing. I usually make one or two fishing trips each year. I am very interested in genealogy...We live in Montevideo, Minnesota where we are members of Community Bible Church. |
