John Clinton Allen was born on December 24, 1932 in Vancouver, Washington to Olive Bernice Allen, neé Kesler, and John Clemens Allen. He had an older sister, Jean Allen. John played the cello and loved listening to classical music. John went to Western Washington University for a year as a music major in 1951 until the fall of 1952, before enlisting in the army. He was in the army from 1952 to 1955 and served as a Morse Code Interpreter during the Korean Conflict, as President Truman referred to it at the time. He was a private in the first platoon of the 10th infantry division. He was stationed in Germany and Vienna during his service.

After the war, he went to Oregon State University from 1957 to 1960 and earned his professional engineer's license. He was certified as a professional engineer in Washington, New Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska. Around 1961, he and some friends went on vacation to Mexico, where he met Dolores Lavin Iturbe (now known as Dolores Lavin Allen). They wrote letters back and forth for a year, meeting in person a total of four more times before getting married. They lived in various places in Oregon during the early days of their marriage, but moved to Seattle sometime around early 1965.

On November 6, 1965, he and his wife had twin girls, Janice and Vivienne, the only children and lights of his life. He became a master's swimmer, his major stroke being backstroke. He passed on his love of swimming to his daughters and more than half of his grandchildren. He even worked as a stroke and turn official at his daughters' swim meets and later on helped time those of his grandchildren who swam the mile.

He worked for KIRO-TV in the cable division in the early part of his career and then got a job with McCaw Communications Companies, and became the head of the cable division until they switched entirely to cellular service in 1987. During this time, he invented a Tracking Co-Channel Interference Filter for the company. After McCaw, he owned a video store in Shoreline, WA until the mid-90s. He became a grandfather in 1995, and had seven wonderful grandchildren from his two daughters. He lived for the last 19 years in Richland, WA with his wife, about a mile and a half from one of his daughters. He died some time after midnight on August 23rd, surrounded by his daughters, his two son-in-laws and one of his grandchildren. His youngest granddaughter, Mia Alpaugh, welcomed him into heaven.

He is survived by his wife, Dolores, his daughters Janice Olsen (Daniel) and Vivienne Alpaugh (Thomas), his grandchildren Sarah Olsen, Spencer Alpaugh, Samuel Alpaugh, Kelsey Olsen, Jennifer Olsen and Mollie Alpaugh and his beloved granddogs Sammy, Charlie and Bowie.