Mary Y. Allen

Private family graveside services for Mary Y. Allen, 96, Lawrence, will be at Memorial Park Cemetery. Mrs. Allen died Monday, Feb. 5, 2007, at her home. She was born Nov. 24, 1910, in New Virginia, Iowa, the daughter of the Rev. Richard R. and Fanny Evans Yelland.She attended Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, from 1927 to 1929 and received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Iowa in 1934. She had lived in Lawrence since September 1945.Mrs. Allen taught at several high schools in Iowa and later taught freshman English at Kansas University. She also taught English at the Edith Stein Gymnasium in Munich, Germany, and then returned to Lawrence and taught German at Lawrence High School.She was a member of the Lawrence school board, Lawrence League of Women Voters, Friends in Council, University Women’s Club, Lawrence Flower Club, Countryside Garden Club and Jayhawk Audubon Society. She founded the Dickens Readers and was a docent at the Spencer Museum of Art. She also was a member of Garden Clubs State Judges Council and belonged to the Unitarian Fellowship.She married Ethan P. Allen in 1937 in Humeston, Iowa. He died in 1968. Survivors include two daughters, Mary Elizabeth Allen, Lawrence, and Martha Sawyer Allen, Minneapolis, Minn.The family suggests memorials to the Ethan P. Allen Pi Sigma Alpha scholarship fund at Kansas University, United Methodist Church of Grand River, Iowa, or a charity of the donor’s choice, sent in care of Warren-McElwain Mortuary.Online condolences may be sent at www.warrenmcelwain.com, subject: Allen.