Allen James Spade

He was born December 16, 1938 at home in Orland, IN to Emery and Gertrude (Collins) Spade. Allen grew up in a very nurturing, Christian home and had many stories to tell living on the farm by Fawn River.

Allen was a lifetime crop farmer and milked cows when he was 14 years old and stopped when he was 70 years old. In the day, he was very agile and had bent down many times a day milking cows. He also had to climb a silo when the silage would be plugged sometimes three times in one day.

He was a member of the Orland and Nevada United Methodist Churches. He had an amazing baritone voice when he would sing hymns in church.

Allen attended Brighton High School and played basketball and baseball for four years and graduated in 1956. He would get up early in the morning and milk cows before he went to school and after school and would go to practice afterwards in the evening. He could always function with less sleep!

When he was 16 years old, he bought a new car after saving all of his egg money and other money he earned on the farm. Allen was the only one at his school with a car and would take his former athlete friends to practice and games.

School came easy for Allen and his principal told him that he could be salutatorian of his class, but he decided to spend his study time dating a girl named, Marlene Christlieb. Allen had seen a picture of her on a bulletin board at Orland High School and told his friend that he was going to marry her. He kept that picture in his wallet for many years and eventually married her on January 25, 1959 and they were married for 62 years.

All of his life, Allen loved reading especially newspapers and would receive three newspapers daily and Newsweek Magazine. He always knew what was going on locally and nationally regarding current events in the world.

Allen built an exquisite tree house in the woods on his property which still stands today.

When Allen would want to end a conversation, he would say “will see what we make out”. Also, when you would ask him as a dad to do something, he couldn’t say “no”, so he would say “will see”.

One very noticeable physical characteristic that Allen had possessed is he had very thick black hair when he was younger as seen by the above picture. As he aged, his hair became black and gray, then gray and white and eventually all white. He still had thick hair when he died. His local barber had told him that he was going to charge him for two haircuts since he had so much hair!

Surviving are his wife, Marlene, Howe; 4 children, Dawn (Spade) Green Orland, Larry and Sherilyn (Spade) Smith Farmington Hills, MI, Eric Spade Howe, and Cliff and Wendy (Spade) Petty, Orland. He had 7 grandchildren: Adam, Brad, BJ, Samantha, Sabrina, Wyatt and Morgan. He had 6 great grandchildren: Adalyn, Briar, Journee, Walker, Foster and Brooklyn.

Allen had two brothers, Herbert Spade of Lagrange and Ronald and Joeann Spade, Angola.

Preceding him in death are his parents, Shirley (Spade) Gray, sister, Andrea Spade, daughter, and Chad Green, grandson.

Husband, brother, dad and grandpa- he will be greatly missed.

The blessing is that he was a born again Christian and we will all see him in paradise in Heaven to live together in eternity. He is now with his family who have died in the past who he had missed on earth.

Stephen Altman, pastor of Christ’s Church at Lake Gage will officiate the graveside service at Greenlawn Cemetery in Orland on Friday, April 30, 2021 at 1 p.m.

Memorial donations may be directed to Christ’s Church at Lake Gage.