Kathleen George Allen

is honored with a Brick from Kim, Karmen and Kevin Allen.

She is our mother, and we love and respect her. As a nurturer, educator, and world citizen, Kathleen Allen has lived an exemplary life of integrity, compassion, and love. As a mother, she has exhibited unconditional love to those around her, especially her children. She has encouraged our individuality, accepting a variety of lifestyles in a mode which has been patient, nurturing, and understanding. Both highly ethical and principled, she is also open-minded, and she has grown and flowered along with us over the years in the spirit of True Education. From steamy pots of nutritious soup to handmade matching Easter dresses, from gentle hand massages during a too long Quaker sermon to applause at our private and public performances, our mother has been our heroine. She has shared with us the memories and the world of the little Wisconsin farm girl who got lost picking blueberries . . .

She was born Kathleen Ann George in Wisconsin Rapids to Don and Annette on December 29, 1940, sharing a wholesome but difficult youth with four younger siblings in the dairyland of the Midwest. Educated in a one-room schoolhouse, she learned and excelled, hungry for the romance, devouring historical novels, always the smart girl with her own ideas and dreams of the great world. From her parents, too, Kathleen developed a lifelong love of music and nature, as well as a strong commitment to family. Like her mother (who always had a dream of becoming a teacher), she is a natural educator, and it was no coincidence that she chose a teacher, Kenton Allen, as a life partner. As a mother, she has also loved and instructed her three children, Kim, Karmen, and Kevin, but she has also taught the world.
The number of lives that have been touched by Kathleen are many and span the globe. After raising her children, our mother finished her education at Wichita State University and became an outstanding and beloved educator in the Wichita Public Schools. Working within the diverse and often troubled world of early adolescence, she taught not only mathematics but also life. Beyond her career in the classroom, Kathleen has been a reformer and advocate of education in a variety of other ways. From her roles as a girl scout leader, Sunday school teacher, and church youth and camp leader, she developed a firm belief in the role of education as a way to make the world a better place. Along with others, she started a community day care center and a progressive school which her own children attended. Beyond Wichita, Kathleen also evolved into a global educator and a world citizen, especially in her continued work with exchange students from countries as diverse as Thailand or Norway.

As the regional coordinator of the American Intercultural Student Exchange, our mother has been a mentor and an inspiration to hundreds of youth from all over the world. She has equally touched her colleagues, fellow missionaries of world peace, who work overtime in their endeavor to promote cultural sharing amongst families of diverse backgrounds. Some of these exchange students have lived in her own home and have become dear members of our extended family, as well as the individuals her children have loved and brought into her circle of love. Our mother believes that the more one loves, the more one is able to give. Generous with her love, she has used this as an instrument of global peacemaking.

Not only is she a heroine, our mother is a delightful human being and friend who has learned, too, from the world around her, adopting an eclectic and culturally rich lifestyle of her own. Sharing a dark beer or strong coffee in a midnight conversation with either Pink Floyd or Bach in the background, our mother delights in discussing the ordinary or the sublime with those of us who surround her. From the plight of the world to her son's guitar strumming, Kathleen is passionate about her interests and those she loves. Her hopes and commitment will truly find fruition when her most recently treasured topic comes to life: a grandchild in the spring.

There are so many special things about our mother that cannot be expressed in a short tribute, but we have attempted to highlight some aspects of her life that have had an impact upon us, her children. We have a profound love and respect for the extraordinary and beautiful person that she is to us, as well as to those she has and will touch throughout her life.

From Kathleen's three children: Kim, Karmen, and Kevin

June 2, 1998