Dallas Co., TX - Obituaries - Mary Florence "Molly" Crutchfield Allen
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Obituary of Mrs. John R. Allen (Mary Florence "Molly" Crutchfield Allen)

When Mrs. John R. Allen answered the final summons on September l3, 1923,
the heavenly gates swung wide to receive one of the saintliest characters
this world has ever seen. She was born on October 26, 1854, in the then
village of Dallas, Texas to J. O. and Fannie P. Crutchfield
and was christened Mary Florence. Here she grew into radiant womanhood,
ina home symbolizing the best of the culture of the old South, and
dominated by a spirit of a positive religious faith and piety. On October
3, l878 she was married to Rev. John R. Allen, the young pastor of the
Floyd Street, now Grace Methodist Church in Dallas. From the date of
her marriage to that of her death she was identified continusly with the
Methodist itinerancy, as the wife of a pastor, a presiding elder, a
college professor and a college president. And never did a
preacher's wife fill her postion with more honor to the ministry
and glory to her Lord.

For fourteen years after their marriage, Dr. and Mrs. Allen were regular
itinerants in the North Texas Conference, save for a brief period spent
in teh Northwest Texas Conference, when Dr. Allen was president of
Marvin College in Waxahachie, pastor of First Church, Fort Worth
During these years in the North Texas Conference they were stationed
at Honey Grove, at Paris, at First Church, Dallas, and upon the
Bonham District. In 1892, Dr. and Mrs. Allen went to Georgetown,
where he became Professor of Philosophy in Southwestern University and
superintendent of the Ladie's Annex. Mrs. Allen became at the same time
matron of the Annex, a positon she retained, with the exception of an
interval of a few months, for sixteen years. And it was here that her
greatest work was done. She became literally mother to hundreds of girls
who had broken their home ties and gone away to school. And all
over the Southland today they call her blessed for the individual
and unselfish care she bestowed upon each one as they passed
form youth into young womanhood. In 1908, Dr. and Mrs. Allen removed
from the Annex to their own home in Georgetown, where they lived until
1918 when they again took work in the North Texas Conference,
serving two years each at jacksboro and Cedar Hill. In 1922, they
retired from active work and removed to Dallas where
they resided till her death the following September. Mrs. Allen lived a
full and symetrical life. The best that the culture and wealth of the
old South could give was hers by birth. In her veins flowed the purest
of American blood - she was a direct descendant of General Daniel
Morgan and Nancy Hart of Revolutionary Fame. Her father and her
grandfather, both paternal and maternal, were among the pioneer residents
of Dallas and North Texas. To this heritage was added a complete
education and a life of travel and study - Dr. and Mrs. Allen made several
trips to Europe and the Holy Land, and she was a deep student of all she
saw and heard upon these journeys. Above all else, however, Mrs.
Allen was a Christian. She was possed of a vital religious experience
that was tested and made perfect throught service and suffering and
in her gentle and un obtrusive fashion she never failed to crown her
Lord by every postion in which she was ever placed. She loved the
beautiful and was an artist of no mean ability herself
- and she always found the beautiful and the true in every person and
situation. Never was there a completer love and trust between husband
and wife than existed between husband and wife than existed between
Dr. and Mrs. Allen. Each literally lived for the other. One of here Annex
girls, now a woman of great power in the Church, wrote these word after
Mrs. Allen's death to her husband. "How the sweet memories of other
years come rushing over me! The sight of your faithful love and
happiness together has been the inspiration of many a home presided over
by your admiring girls. When she passed, it seemed like the ceasing of
exquisite music will not be true of the passing ---- this, our loved one.
The music will change in its tones - its chords take on the deeper minor
to continually deepen and sweeten with all the mysterious linking of
each days passing bringing nearer the eternal triumphant burst of
victorius love."------- not blessed with children of her own, but she
was mother to hundreds. Not only did she feel this relationship to
all the girls under her care at Southwestern, but she became
mother in fact to Sam Shaw, the orphaned son of a Methodis
itinerant, whom Dr. and Mrs. Allen reared and who is now an
honored business man of Ada, Oklahoma, and to her brother's
motherless children, who Dr. and Mrs. Allen reared and educated and who
are now Mrs. George Pierce of Dallas and Mrs. A. Frank Smith, of Houston.
The last year of her life was spent in the home of Mrs. Pierce, on
University Boulevard in Dallas, and during those long months of suffering
and pain her faith never wavered - no word of complaint ever fell from her
lips; to the very last her sole concern was for others, and her chief
worry was the fear that her suffering might bring added care to her loved
ones. All that medical skill and loving care could accomplish was done for
her, but we knew months before the end that her days were numbered. She
was surrounded during those last months by many of her old-time friends
and associated of former yars and their frequent visits never failed to
cheer her heart and bring to mind the dear scenes of other days when she
was the devoted wife of a traveling preacher and the mother confessor
of hundreds of school girls. Her spirit was glorified furing this time and
just a few days before her translation, after Dr. Allen had read one of
Paul's great utterances upon the privilege of sharing the fellowship of
Christ's sufferings, her eyes filled with tears and she said, "If there is
nothing else I can do for my Lord, I may suffer for Him." And those
of us who watched beside her during this time, caught a wision of our
Lord not before revealed unto us, as we saw her spirit grow stronger
as the sands of life rand to their close. For the last
week of her life she grew steadily weaker and at noon on Thursday,
September 13, 1923, the silver cord was loosed, the golden
pitcher was broken and she had entered into the presence of her Lord. On
Friday afternoon, the 14th, the burial service of her beloved Church was
conducted over her body in Oak Lawn Church by the writer, assisted by
the pastor of the Church, Rev. J. W. Fort. It was a calm autumn afternoon,
quiet and peaceful as her life had been. Among those present were scores
of her friends of other days. Tender tributes were paid to her memory by
Revs. O.S. Thomas, S. C. Riddle, and T. H. Morris, fellow itinerants of
the North Texas Conference, and by Drs. John H. McLean and R. S.
Hyer, each of whom had been president of Southwestern during her
labors there. Just as the sun was setting we laid her body away, beneath
a mountain of flowers in Greenwood Cemetery, where she had
requested to be placed to await the Resurrection Morn. And as we looked up
from the newly made mound into the heavens, tinged already with the
lengthening shadows of the coming night, we could seen through the
darkness the expanding light of a new day, destined never to grow old
in that land "Where no storms ever beat on the glittering strand and the
years of eternity roll." I loved Mrs. Allen, she was my mother.
My life here is nobler and heaven is nearer and dearer
because she lived and loved me.
A. Frank Smith