David Ray Allen

David Ray Allen passed away in Nampa, Idaho on April 6, 2019 after battling pancreatic cancer.  He was 79 years old.  

Dave was born on July 8, 1939 to Irvin and Bessie Guentz Allen, the youngest brother to Wesley and Glenn. The cherubic, tow-headed boy grew up side-by-side with his cousins Shirley, Franklin and Mary, the children of his father’s twin brother Ernest on the family’s Deer Flat farm. He was a loving, supportive son to his young, widowed mother and a lifelong member of Southside Boulevard United Methodist Church. He graduated from University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA where his cousin Mary introduced him to his future wife, Sara Johnston. After a short stint at Boeing, he returned to Nampa in 1961 with a degree in Fine Arts and his new wife to launch his career as a fourth-generation Idaho farmer. Dave and Sara were joined by their first daughter, Gillian, in 1962, before Dave and brother, Glenn, started their own farm out in the Dry Lake area in 1964. Daughters, Amy and Katie, and son, Andy, followed at regular three-year intervals to create a household filled with cats, dogs and a steady stream of family, friends and Japanese agricultural exchange students.

Dave was a genuinely likable man. He approached people with open-minded curiosity and could - and did – talk at length to anybody he met. To know Dave was to know his enthusiasms. He was passionate and effusive in his appreciation of the state of Idaho, garden tomatoes, barbershop music, sushi, and BSU football. He was a busy and fearless inventor/tinkerer, working on a wide range of projects at all times – from farming innovations and solar panels to ice-clearing machines for his front sidewalk. Despite a hard-driving work ethic, he never missed a track meet or a musical recital. His pride in his wife, his children and his grandchildren was legendary… but he was equally proud of his large, extended family and his many friends. He was a lifelong outdoorsman who loved to fish, hike, camp, ski, kayak, bow-hunt, but particularly in good company. Teamed with an adventurous wife, Dave loved explorations whether it was unmarked roads in the Owyhees or trekking through the US, Europe, Japan, and Central America. He sang in choirs throughout his life, but his delight in singing barbershop with the Boise Chordsmen was evident to anyone who heard him blasting barbershop music on his pickup stereo.

While Dave was a veteran of 27 surgeries for a wide and wild variety of calamities, he refused to allow infirmities to define him or even slow him down.  Whether it was joining his nine grandchildren and great-nieces in the annual Thanksgiving soccer match against their parents or laughing uproariously with his Wednesday morning choir buddies, the “Back Row Boys,” he lived his life with joy, hard work, and zest.

Dave is survived by his wife, Sara; daughter, Gillian Allen-White (Ben), grandsons, Abraham and Elijah Allen-White; daughter, Amy Allen Kenkel (Vince), granddaughters, Bonnie and Julia Kenkel; daughter, Katie Allen Cort (John), granddaughters, Lucy, Bessie and Josie Cort; son, Andrew Allen (Annie Chen-Allen), grandsons, Gabriel and Paxton Allen; brother, Wesley Allen; brother, Glenn Allen (Charlotte); and  good, great and greater nieces and nephews; cousins galore; and a family of in-laws that are indistinguishable from Dave’s birth family.

A memorial service will be held at Southside Blvd United Methodist Church, 5420 Southside Blvd, Nampa, on Saturday, April 13th at 10:30am. 

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Southside Blvd UMC.

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