G. Wesley Allen, 91, former city solicitor, dies

G.WESLEY ALLEN, a former assistant Philadelphia city solicitor, retired regional counsel for the Postal Service and Army veteran of World War II and the Korean War, died Nov. 7. He was 91 and lived in Mount Airy.

Wes, as he was known to family and friends, practiced law with prominent civil-rights leader and Common Pleas Judge Raymond Pace Alexander and his lawyer wife, Sadie.

He also was a law associate of the late Robert N.C. Nix Jr., who went on to become chief justice of Pennsylvania.

Wes practiced law for about 15 years before joining the City Solicitor's Office. He then became regional counsel for the Postal Service, from which he retired in 1987.

He was born in Collingdale, Delaware County, the third of the three sons of Alexander J. Allen, 62nd bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the former Jewett Washington.

Wes attended Glenville High School in Cleveland, where he was an outstanding athlete. He was the Ohio state high-jump champion and an all-city basketball player.

Legendary Olympian Jesse Owens tried to get him to attend Ohio State University, Owens' alma mater, but Wes decided to attend the University of Michigan, where, in 1938, he established an NCAA high-jump record.

He joined the Army after college and graduated from Officer's Candidate School. He served in the Philippines as a first lieutenant. He was a member of the Judge Advocate General's Corps during the Korean War. He graduated from Case Western Reserve University Law School in 1947.

He was proud of his three brothers' accomplishments. Samuel Allen, now 92, a Harvard Law graduate, became a prominent poet and translator.

Now deceased are his brothers Joseph, who in the 1950s and '60s was an active member of the Urban League; and Griffin, an ophthalmologist at Cleveland State Hospital, who developed groundbreaking eye surgery.

He also was proud of his wife, Eloise Downing Allen, the first black woman elected moderator of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, and a champion of the homeless and the poor. They met in the Howard University bookstore and were married in 1944. She died in 2003.

Wes' maternal grandmother, Josephine Turpin Washington, an 1889 Howard graduate, worked with famed black social reformer Frederick Douglass on a newspaper he founded.

Wes was a member of Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church and a past member of the Frontiers International Club, an African-American service organization founded by his uncle Nimrod Allen.

He also was a member of the Del Val Golf Club and the Barristers Club. He and his wife liked to vacation at Martha's Vineyard.

Wes loved to recite poetry, especially the works of Shakespeare, Langston Hughes and Paul Lawrence Dunbar.

Besides his brother, he is survived by two sons, Wesley C. Allen, a lawyer; and Mark D.T. Allen, an orthopedic surgeon; and six grandchildren.

Services: Memorial service 10 a.m. Dec. 4 at Ivy Hill Cemetery Chapel, Easton Road and Woolston Avenue, East Mount Airy.