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In memory of

Charles "Chuck" Lindberg Allyn

Tacoma, WA, USA

May 31, 1927 - March 5, 2021

May 31, 1927 - Mar 5, 2021

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Charles Lindberg Allyn (“Chuck”) passed away in the bed of his Fife Heights home of 58 years in the early hours of March 5, 2021. Age 93, Chuck died pain free of no known cause, other than deciding to forgo food and face death simply and naturally. Born May 31, 1927 in Adams, Wisconsin, Charles was the youngest and last surviving child of Richard Y. Allyn and Lottie Lee Wilford. His name derives from the aviator Charles Lindbergh, who conquered the world in 1927 with the first Transatlantic flight. A surprise baby, he was born 12 years after his nearest sibling, brother Bill. The next year, 1928, Lottie, Bill, sister Marion, and Chuck relocated from Adams to Seattle driving a Model T. They joined Richard, who had come to Seattle to start over financially, after suffering a business failure in Adams.

The Allyn family multiplied in Seattle from 1928 until the 1950s, when Richard suffered a stroke and Lottie acquired severe arthritis. All the Allyn brothers, sisters, and their offspring eventually lived close by in the Puget Sound area, except sister Agnes, who had passed unexpectedly of a brain tumor in her thirties. Chuck was preceded in death by Agnes and all his other siblings, including sisters Marion and Dorothy, along with brothers Bob and Bill.

Chuck first met Sue Kiesel at the Mountaineers’ dance near the University of Washington around 1952. Her father was not supportive, as Chuck was seven years older. But they married May 31, 1953 with one other couple in attendance. Then serving in the US Navy, the newlyweds were stationed to Honolulu, followed by San Francisco. Son John was born in 1954 and Paul in 1956. Charles is survived by both sons and Sue, to whom he was married for 68 years.

Trained in electronics and radar by the Navy, Charles degreed in Chemical Engineering at the University of Washington and hired into Reichhold Chemicals. Reichhold moved from Seattle to the Tacoma tide flats around 1958, bringing Charles, Sue and the boys to Fife. The family first resided on Dale Lane in the Fife valley, then moved around 1963 to their long-time home on Fife Heights.

Charles became the plant engineer at Reichhold, later developing a proprietary process and catalyst for the production of formaldehyde, which Reichhold sold to other firms around the world. Mid-career around 1977 at age 50, Chuck was overcome with debilitating fear and depression that kept him bedridden for over one month. Anxiety symptoms dogged him the remainder of this life from this incident. When his condition improved, he chose early retirement from Reichhold and formed Allyn Pictures. A lifelong photographer, he framed and sold his pictures – for a time as part of a Gig Harbor gallery.
Like his father and most of his siblings, Chuck had an active and scientific mind that lent itself to puzzles, chess, cribbage, the natural environment of plants and birds, chemical plant design, photography, mental math calculations, and a lasting obsession over the national debt. He would read for pleasure the Almanac and the life of US Presidents and quote various statistics and facts from each. Puns humored him, especially those involving word play with obscure poems no one knew (thus not getting the humor).

Chuck was an early Mountaineer, joining for climbing outings while in college around 1945. The father of neighbors and later climbers Ralph and Ted Widrig dropped the three off on one side of the Olympics and picked them up on the other side. After befriending fellow chemical engineer Pete Schoening in Navy electronics school, Pete and Chuck rampaged all through the Olympics a few years before Pete gravitated to rock and expedition climbing. However, Pete married Chuck’s niece and stayed a lifetime friend and relative. Chuck’s new mountaineering friends were Harvey Manning, of Issaquah Alps fame, and Ted Beck. On backcountry trips they encountered the famed Herb and Lois Crisler, Bob and Ira Spring, and other legends of Northwest mountaineering, cinematography and photography. For decades Chuck’s love was September fly fishing ten miles up the Elwha River with his brothers and nephews (Homer, Don and Dick). Long into his seventies, Ted and Chuck made weeklong backcountry trips into the Cascades and Olympics, together with four or five other friends of similar age.

The breadth and summit of Mount Rainier were constant companion to Chuck’s life from age twenty something onward – a dominant presence from both Fife homes. He climbed it three times. He may be best remembered for the many spectacular images he captured of the peak and its meadows – in every season under all shades of light.

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