Alice Isadora Allen

Alice I. (Kerr) Allen passed away April 9, 2018. She was born to John and Sarah (Mackey) Kerr, March 6, 1919 in Graham County, Kansas. She graduated from Hill City Memorial High School in 1937 and married Ralph Allen that same year. They farmed the family homesteaded farm in the Prairie Home neighborhood and welcomed four children into their lives: Norma, Edward, Marie and Linda. Ralph and Alice enjoyed farming, hunting and vacations. They hunted pheasant and deer on their land and hunted elk in Colorado. After Ralph’s death in 1976, Alice moved to WaKeeney, Kansas where she managed the Senior Mealsite for many years. She kept busy with knitting, tole painting and many bus trips which she enjoyed very much. She loved spending weeks in the winter with daughter Norma’s family in Paola, Kansas and holidays with Linda in Hutchinson, Kansas. Alice loved the farm and she raised chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese. She made a large garden every spring and canned and preserved it all for winter meals. Her children would cringe when she handed each of them a five-gallon bucket and said, “Go pick and snap green beans.” Have you ever seen a five-gallon bucket full of green beans? Harvest crews loved working our harvests because they knew the bountiful meal of fried chicken, homemade bread and pies awaited them at the end of a hard day. One evening as they neared the kitchen, they met Alice coming out carrying a very long bull snake by the tail and casually flipping it off in the grass. Does she do that often, they asked? Yes, whenever she finds a snake in the house! Alice loved collecting rocks from various vacation spots they visited (this was before there were laws against picking up rock). One time in Colorado, she hiked up a steep hill with a sack to retrieve some particularly beautiful rocks. As she slipped and slid back down the hill, she held up an empty sack with a hole in it! Alice was preceded in death by her parents; step-brother Demas Kerr; her husband Ralph; her son Edward; and an infant grandson. Alice is survived by her three daughters: Norma (Bill) Imel of Paola; Marie (Ed) Sharpe of Hill City; and Linda Naiman of Hutchinson. She will be lovingly remembered by her special caretaker, Tatia Millitsen; her 11 grandchildren; 16 great-grandchildren and 6 great-great grandchildren.