NORTHWESTERN IOWA ITS HISTORY AND TRADITION VOLUME II 1804-1926 A. F. Allen Arthur Francis Allen, who has been identified with the newspaper business since he first entered a printing office as a youth of fifteen, has spent the past thirty-six years on the editorial staff of the Sioux City Journal and has been its editor-in-chief since 1914. He was born in Warren, Jo Davies county, Illinois, on the 15th of December, 1867, and spent the period of his boyhood on the home farm. His education was acquired in the public schools and in the printing office. He was a lad in his fourteenth year when he accompanied his parents on their removal from the Illinois farm to a farm near Lincoln, Nebraska, in sight of the state capitol. It was in the spring of 1883 that the family home was established in Fremont, Nebraska, where Arthur F. Allen entered the Herald office to learn the printer's trade. He was employed in the Herald and Tribune offices until the summer of 1885 when he went to Cedar Rapids to work on the Gazette as a type-setter, being thus engaged for one year. During the winter of 1886-7 he joined the Typographical Union at Omaha and he has maintained his active membership in the organization to the present time. For a number of years he worked as a journeyman printer in newspaper offices at Omaha and elsewhere. His first editorial work was done in the office of the Sioux City Journal in 1889, and from that time to the present, with the exception of a few intervals of absence, he has been almost continuously on its editorial staff. He had served sixteen years as managing editor when in 1914, on the death of George D. Perkins, the founder of the Sioux City Daily Journal, he succeeded the latter as editor-in-chief. Mr. Allen was married in 1899 and has two sons: Francis A., whose home is Los Angeles, California, and Edwin Forrest, who is a student at the University of Iowa, at Iowa City. The military record of Arthur F. Allen covers about twelve years' service in the National Guard and three years' service in the United States army. He is a Presbyterian in religious faith, while fraternally he is identified with the Masons, belonging to Tyrian Lodge, No. 508, A. F. & A. M.; Sioux City Chapter, No. 26, R. A. M., and Columbian Commandery, No. 18, K. T. He also has membership in the Rotary Club and is widely recognized as a public-spirited and enterprising citizen whose influence as a director of public thought and opinion has ever been exerted on the side of right, progress and improvement. Debbie Clough Gerischer Iowa Gen Web, Assistant CC, Scott County http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/ IAGENWEB: Special History Project: http://iagenweb.org/history/index.htm Gerischer Family Web Site: http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/