Via Cumberland Presbyterian Magazine
Dr. Robert Howard Allen, 76, of Madisonville, Tennessee, a poet, scholar, and longtime college professor whose remarkable journey of faith and perseverance inspired countless students, died November 3, 2025.
Born in Huntingdon, Tennessee, on February 7, 1949, Robert’s early life was marked by hardship, but it became a story of grace, endurance, and devotion to God. Raised by his grandfather and blind great-aunt, Ida, after being abandoned as a child, Robert found his anchor in faith and Scripture. Each evening, he read the Bible aloud to Aunt Ida—five chapters a night—instilling in him a lifelong reverence for both language and the Word.
Denied formal schooling in his youth, Robert educated himself through Scripture, a dictionary left by his mother, and stacks of borrowed books. He taught himself to read using comic books, then turned to the classics and Shakespeare. His love of language led him to write poetry, which was soon published in respected literary journals.
In his late twenties, Robert earned a near-perfect score on the GED and excelled on college entrance exams. In 1981, at age 32, he enrolled at Bethel College in McKenzie, Tennessee—now Bethel University—where he graduated summa cum laude in 1984. That same year, his story of perseverance drew national attention through newspaper features, television coverage, and a documentary.
Robert went on to earn both a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University on a full six-year Presidential Scholarship. His doctoral work examined the mythic background of W.B. Yeats’s early poetry.
Following his studies, Dr. Allen returned to Bethel as a professor, later teaching at Murray State University, the University of Tennessee–Martin, and finally Hiwassee College, a United Methodist institution in Madisonville, Tennessee, where he also served as college archivist. His students remembered him as a gentle, insightful mentor who loved literature and believed deeply in the transforming power of education.
Robert’s unpublished manuscripts, including his autobiography, resided in the Hiwassee College archive and are now presumably in the possession of the Holston Conference Commission on Archives and History.
A faithful church member and an elder in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Robert lived out a quiet, enduring ministry of faith through scholarship, compassion, and service. He remained active in his later years at First Presbyterian Church of Sweetwater and supported community ministries such as the Good Shepherd Center in Madisonville.
Robert’s writing and teaching reflected the steadfast hope that had carried him through life’s hardships. “Forgiveness isn’t a theory to him—it’s his life,” wrote one friend. His ministry was found not in the pulpit but in the classroom, in his care for others, and in his unshakable belief that truth and love endure.
Robert Howard Allen was featured in “Our Stories” in the April 2023 issue of the Cumberland Presbyterian magazine.
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