Leroy Allen was born December 6, 1878, in Wooster, Ohio. He attended the College of Wooster, graduating with a Ph.B. in 1906. He took classes during summer school at the University of Wisconsin (1907-1908) and graduated from Xenia Theological Seminary in 1914. He then earned his M.A. from the University of Chicago Divinity School (1920). (Educational details incomplete; torn record reads “… City U. D. Soc. Sci (hon.) 1930” and also mentions “Harvard, 1936.”) In 1923 he was received from the United Presbyterian Church into the Southwest Kansas Conference of the M. E. Church. His full membership date was March 16, 1923. He had previously received the orders of Elder in the U.P. church in April 1914. He transferred to the Central Kansas Conference in 1939. He married Ethel Jeannette Boyd (1889-1956) on August 19, 1914; their children were Ruth Elizabeth Allen (born February 29, 1916) and Janet Priscilla (Allen) Gartner (born January 19, 1927). His pastoral record includes: Pastor, Second United Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati (1919-1921) Pastor, Presbyterian Church, Middleton, Oklahoma (1923-1925) Professor, Economics and Sociology, Cedarville College (1906-1922) Dean, Cedarville College (1915-1922) Southwestern College: Professor, Economics (1922-1925), Professor of Religion and Dean of College of Liberal Arts (1925-1938), Professor of Religion (1925-1947). At Southwestern he was also director of forensics and national founder of Pi Gamma Mu (International honor society in social sciences). The records suggest he also served in a ministerial capacity at Grand View (probably Grandview Church, Winfield, Kansas) in 1945. Rev. Allen died on August 3, 1947, in Winfield, Kansas. He is buried at Highland Cemetery, Winfield, Cowley County, Kansas. His memoir can be found in the 1947 Central Kansas Conference Minutes (page 516). The memoir for his wife Ethel is in the minutes for 1956 (page 150).

Note written by Sarah St. John