Don was born to Joseph Don and Dorothy (nee Roberts) Somsen on January 31, 1944, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Joseph Don (J.D.) was a grocery man and moved the family often for work. Due to this, Don Allen grew up in Venezuela, Sacramento, CA, Ripley, IL, and Moab, UT before finally setting roots in Salt Lake City, UT, where he graduated from West High School in 1962. While attending high school, Don worked in the grocery business, like his father. While working at Valley Grocery in Kearns, UT, Don met Susan Beth Tolley and actively began courting her. After three years of dating, Don and Susan were married September 25, 1964. Don left the grocery business after Warshaw’s was sold to Dee Smith, where Don was Assistant Store Manager, to work for Hercules. The unpredictable layoffs at Hercules led Don to join the Chevron Refinery in North Salt Lake in 1975. Don worked for Chevron until his retirement in 2000. This year was the first time Don would battle cancer and survive. Don’s wanderlust, and inability to stop puttering, led him to later work at a refinery in the Kazakhstan desert, an oil platform off the coast of Nigeria, and finally for Bapco, an oil processing company in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Don and Susan would return from this final adventure on July 4, 2021. In between these stints overseas, Don and Susan would spend extended time on the road in their motorhome wandering throughout the United States. Even when money was tight, Don insisted on taking Susan and his children on vacation. Due to shift work, Darren and Jennifer, on more than one occasion, awoke in the back of the family’s Chevy Blazer on I-15 halfway between Salt Lake City and Anaheim for a whirlwind trip to visit The Mouse. This instilled a lifelong love for Disney in his children and grandchildren.
Don is survived by his wife Susan Beth Somsen (Tolley), son Darren Allen Somsen and his wife Katrin, daughter Jennifer Sue Hardrath (Somsen) and her husband Dustin Hardrath, grandchildren Sydney Jennifer Bloemke (Hardrath) and her husband Ryan, Olivia Grace Butler (Hardrath) and her husband Carson. Don is also survived by his brother Max Somsen, sister Sharon Vargecko, and sister Deanna Adamson. Don was preceded in death by his parents and his beloved pet monkey, Fayo.
A visitation with the family will be held on October 6, 2022, from 5:00 – 7:00pm at Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park at 3401 S. Highland Drive, Millcreek, Utah. In lieu of flowers, Susan has requested donations towards a bitchin’ sports car so she can go from town-to-town fighting crime – like a cross between Jessica Fletcher and Bruce Banner.
