Terry Wayne Allen, 70, a lifelong resident of Oakland, died at home on
August 5th at the end of an 18-year battle against the cancer that finally
took his life. He had been released from the hospital only the week before.

Terry was born at Summit Hospital on April 9, 1955, the eldest child of
Mildred Bassett and Gerald Leonard Allen. His younger brother, John,
died of leukemia at age 6, leaving Terry and his sister, Nancy. Their father
worked at the Chevron refinery for over 30 years, and Mille’ was a
successful hairdresser, eventually owning the Nor-Cal Barber
Cosmetology Apprenticeship Program in Concord, which included a salon and a barber shop.

Terry’s sole brief marriage was childless, but he was a doting uncle to his
sister Nancy’s four children: Rebecca, Christopher, Jonathan, and
Jeremiah. The greatest act of Terry’s life was to obtain custody of
Jeremiah at age 6, and he reared him alone for 10 years, until he was
diagnosed with salivary gland cancer. Until then, Terry had been
relentless in finding resources for his nephew. When Jeremiah graduated
from the Lincoln Child Center, one of his teachers declared that he had
never known a student who had received as much after-school
enrichment as Terry had organized for Jeremiah: from rowing classes at
Fairyland to swimming at the Berkeley YMCA to jazz classes at Yoshi’s to
working out with the Cal track team (whose coach, Ed Miller, was a college friend).

Terry was by nature a researcher and archivist and an ardent collector –
especially of books, music, and baseball statistics. He played Little League
baseball as a child (also softball and basketball as a teenager) and was a
longtime season ticket holder of the Oakland As. He followed the San
Francisco Giants as well, and would regale his friends with details of
games played years ago.

For a couple of decades he worked in law offices, most notably for the
Anti-SLAPP lawyer Mark Goldowitz, for whom he performed a variety of
administrative functions. Terry later worked for the Berkeley Law School
as an exam proctor, and in his final years volunteered as a reading
instructor in Oakland schools. Even after suffering from a brain tumor, he
labored to finish the final coursework for the English degree he had
started at Cal half a century earlier, so that he would be able to enter a
Master’s program in early childhood education.

Terry always worked well with kids; his loving nature and goofy sense of
humor was appreciated by children and adults alike. His funeral will take
place at 1:00 pm this Saturday, August 23rd, at the historic Episcopal
Church of the Good Shepherd, located at 1823 Ninth Street in Berkeley.
A reception in the parish hall will follow.

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