A celebration of the life of Allen Dean Ryel will be at 1:00 PM Tuesday, November 3, 2009, at the Anderson-Burris Funeral Home Chapel.  Burial will be in the Star Cemetery in Aline, with arrangements by Anderson-Burris Funeral Home.

     Allen Dean Ryel was born on a cold winter day on Leap Year (February 29, 1928) to Lee Henry and Martha Aldena “Dena” (Griffeth) Ryel.  He was the fourth of the five children born to this family.  He attended the Ruby Grade School, and later graduated from Cleo Springs High School in 1947.

     He tells of hunting as a young man and making sausage out of jack rabbits that were very plentiful one year.  Every bullet counted, which made all the boys remarkable shots. He would tell of the ornery things he would do to his little brother Darrel, like the time he caught him with two full buckets of milk going from the barn to the house, and jumped out and scared him, and Darrel clocked him with the milk buckets.  Or the times he would go down in the pasture and get the snake out of the old hollow log and play with it.  If only his Father would have known, he would have tanned his hide good and proper.  He told of the hard times and cold weather when he would go out with his mother and take care of the animals.  He would be “her ears” because she was hard of hearing and depended on him for many repeated words or sounds.

     As a teen, he got the wanderlust, and went to Washington state to live with his aunt and uncle.  On the trip there, he had to wait in the middle of the country away from towns for the bus with only a hard bench to wait on, and no food for many dark, cold hours with the coyotes howling at him.  The bus driver took pity on him and gave him food after three days without eating.  He told of the gigantic apples that covered the dinner plate, and how Aunt Tot would pierce each prune with a toothpick and put it to dry without having to cover it to keep the insects away.

     There seemed to be something missing from his life, and he came back to see if he could find what was missing.  In March of 1949, he married that cute lil’ girl that he was so much in love with.  He decided to take his beautiful Virginia Melrose to elope in Tulsa.

     To this union, the first son Tommy Lee was born in 1950.  He was the apple of both parents’ eyes.  Again the wanderlust stuck, and he moved the family to Oregon where he worked in the lumber mills.  Three years later came a little girl, Sandra Jane.  The happy family moved back to the Enid area after a while, and in 1959, along came Allen Ray Ryel.

     Allen Dean worked as a front end mechanic at Firestone in Enid, Howard Way in Fairview, and Jackie cooper in Oklahoma City. They lived in Guymon, Woodward, Seiling, Alva, the Oklahoma City area, and finally retired to Enid in 1990.  Any chance Allen got to till the soil, he would plant a bountiful garden.  This he would share with his friends and neighbors.  One year the neighbor’s goats got in the garden.  That is when those blue eyes of his turned into lightening bolts and would have turned the goats into ash if he could have.  He and Virginia worked together in the garden and produced many wonderful meals from the garden.  He also enjoyed woodworking and made some of the most beautiful shelves.  Winter time would come, and he enjoyed picking up pecans and shelling them.   He would shell many pounds of them each year if he could find them, or get the kids or grandkids to pick up the nuts for him.

     Allen Dean is survived by his wife Virginia of the home; two sons, Tom Ryel and wife Jeanette of Enid, and Allen Ray Ryel and wife Nancy of El Reno; daughter Sandra Baker and husband Jim of Cleburne, TX; seven grandchildren: Melissa Nossaman, Rosetta and husband Adrian Vandever, Christina Ryel, Rod Hicks, Rick Hicks and wife Jane, Mike Baker and wife Hana, and John Baker; eight grandchildren: Jakob Coe, Andromeda & Daniel Vandever, Jamie Riley, Justin Hicks, Audrey and Margret Baker, and Ethan Baker; one great, great grandchild Bailey Riley.

      He was preceded in death by his three brothers and one sister.

      Memorials may be made to Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation – Diabetes Division.