Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects Who's Who in 1921 & 1922 Thomas Claude Allen

"The Fairfield Tribune"
Thursday, April 28, 1921
Page SIX

NO. 12 (sic - should be 13)

THOMAS CLAUDE ALLEN

A salesman dropped into the Allen-Streed store one day this spring and asked to see the buyer. The girl at the desk told him he would find the senior member of the firm out doors at the rear of the building. The salesman went out to the rear of the store where he found a grimy, overall-clad fellow busy tinkering with the business end of a reaper. He didn't accost him but looked elsewhere around the building. He found no one and re-entered the store again and asked the girl the whereabouts of the buyer. She reassured that Mr. Allen was out there, that if he was not he would be presently.

The salesman again went out and, seeing no one else, sat down and engaged the overall-clad man in conversation while he worked. He talked to him about farm implements, of course, and found the fellow had a surprising knowledge of the subject as well as skill in the repair work he was doing. He talked with him for an hour and a half and Mr. Allen hadn't shown up. So he went into the store and asked the girl where he could find Mr. Streed. Being informed, he went into the bank next door and talked business with the junior member. Incidentally he told Streed of the fellow working at the rear of the store having such a knowledge of farm machinery. Streed didn't know who it could be, so he stepped out to see.

"Why, that's Tom," he said.

"Tom who?" demanded the salesman.

"Why, Tom Allen, my partner," Streed informed him.

All of which is related merely to emphasize the fact that the hero of our narrative, Thomas Claude Allen, to whom we will now introduce you, is a chap who believes in using his two hands where they will do the most good; and also, to further impress upon you that this same Thomas Claude is a mighty democratic sort of a fellow. When there's a load to be carried, and you find some of the help about the store carrying one end of it you'll usually find Tom hold of the other end.

Tom was born in Des Moines county on a farm. He experienced about everything that could be experienced on a farm. There was just one kind of a crop he never sowed--wild oats; the most searching inquiry failing to uncover any evidence of his ever experimenting with this very prolific crop. Tom's never been very far away from work relating to the farm. He did go out to Colorado a good many years ago and tackled driving a laundry wagon, but he didn't stay long on that job. Then he went down into New Mexico and tried ranching it. He had a lot of Mexican helpers. Tom never had learned how to cuss so he quit that country and hiked back to Iowa.

When he heard there was a chance to buy out the Spence Implement business in Fairfield he came here to see about it. He found it very satisfactory but would not close the deal until he was fully informed how far it was from Fairfield to Birmingham, and in what condition the roads between the places usually were. To fully satisfy himself on this point he made repeated trips to Birmingham. Finding the trip easily and quickly made, he decided to buy the business and came to Fairfield. He doesn't go to Birmingham any more--he's married.

The cartoonist caught Thomas Claude at his work and had him pose for the picture which accompanies this truthful narrative. This identical moment was chosen because it presents him in a characteristic pose. Tom would rather be out doors tinkering with an old wagon or a piece of farm machinery than be indoors making a lot of money. He likes to get on his working clothes and be at ease. White collars are alright for getting married in and for wearing to church, he says, but they're not for anybody who has work to do. Tom came down to the store dressed in his Sunday clothes one day and somebody called him Mister Allen. Since then he shies at every combination of work and dressed up.

As stated elsewhere, Thomas Claude Allen has failed entirely to sow any of that fancy seed known as wild oats. In fact he has made an intensive culture of that much less popular burt more profitable seed called Good Deeds--and he's been harvesting what you might call a pretty fair crop yield. In the interests of exact and fearless truth, which has ever marked this department of the Tribune, the biographer has conducted a rigid investigation into the life of Thomas Claude and failed to find that he ever did anything mean enough to afford a subject for conversation. The fact of the matter is that Tom Allen is a four-square sort of a chap who pays very strict attention to his own business and does not bother about that of any one else, pays his own way and that of a lot of other people, swears by Fairfield and unties his purse-string cheerfully when there's something for the good of the old town to be done.