Paul Warren Allen, 1913-2010

‘One of those jewels’

Music professor Paul Warren Allen could be moved to tears by the
beautiful sounds created by students in his choir at North Central
College.

“I remember one Christmas, he was conducting the choir singing
Handel’s ‘Messiah.’ The truth of the words gripped him and he had
… tears running down his cheeks,” recalls his daughter, Paula
Billingsley.

Allen, of Orange City, Fla., died Dec. 4 from complications
following surgery. He was 96. He was a direct descendent of
American Revolutionary War patriot Ethan Allen, his daughter
says.

Allen came to North Central in 1957 after serving on the music
faculty at nearby Wheaton College. He assembled a choir that
eventually grew to more than 100 students who toured the United
States and Canada, performing for as many as 17,000 people a
year.