Dallas Eugene Allred
Born August 3, 1901
Died December 5, 1984
Lineage: Dallas, John Thomas, Lewis Patterson, John James, John, Elias, Thomas, Solomon born 1680 Lancashire, England
By: Melvin Alred
Dallas was a farmer, carpenter, and a primitive Baptist minister and was the most colorful of the eleven children of John Thomas and Olie Ander Estes Allred. There are so many amusing, funny, and caring things that I remember, and things people have told me about Uncle Dallas. My first memory of Dallas was just before Christmas of 1940. He was holding me in his lap and praying for my injured hand. I was almost four years old when I found some firecrackers my dad had purchased to celebrate New Year’s. I watched my dad test a few by lighting the fuse and tossing them up in the air. The injury occurred when I forgot to toss the firecracker.
Two and a half years later I was in the second grade at McCord Cross Road School when a rabid dog came stumbling through the area where we were playing. The dog passed us, bumped into a tree, turned and headed straight for the watching children. At that moment there was a thunderous noise, and the dog fell to the ground. I turned toward the noise and Dallas was standing there with a 12-gauge shotgun. He was a trustee of the school and lived only two houses from the school. Seeing the dog pass his house and knowing the children could be in harm’s way, he retrieved his shotgun and gave chase, killing it just before it reached the unsuspecting children.
While farming during the Depression in the 1930s, a young couple approached Dallas in his cotton field and asked if he could marry them. He removed a Bible from the bib pocket of his overalls and preformed the ceremony. When the groom explained he had no money to pay for the ceremony, Dallas handed him two dollars as a wedding gift and sent him on his way.
On another occasion, after the ceremony, the groom asked Dallas how much he owed him. Without hesitation, Dallas said, “Whatever you think she’s worth.”
Dallas pastored many churches in Northwest Georgia and Northeast Alabama but refused to take a salary. He said if Jesus didn’t charge for preaching the Gospel, he had no right to do so. His belief was anything you gave or did to help anyone would be returned twofold. Even though Dallas had a caring and loving heart, he was not about to let people take advantage of him. For weeks a fellow worker harassed Dallas and criticized his religion. One day, the worker was on a ladder painting and accidentally came in contact with some electrical wiring. Seeing the worker could not free himself, Dallas picked up a two-by-four and knocked him off the ladder. “But preacher,” a worker asked, “why did you hit him when you could have just pushed him away from the electrical wiring?” Dallas replied, “Yes, I could have, but I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.”
In the early 1940’s, Dallas moved to Rome, Georgia, and lived there the remainder of his life. Even though he lived in the city, he always had a large garden and supplied all the neighbors with free vegetables. For the next forty years he built houses in Rome and Floyd County. Since Dallas had never flown in an airplane, I thought it would be a great idea to take him for an airplane ride for his 70th birthday. He was reluctant at first, but he finally agreed to go. I took him on a short flight, circling his house, and returned to the airport. Upon exiting the airplane, Dallas turned to me and said, “Melvin, I want to thank you for both of those airplane rides.” I said to him, “We only went up one time.” He replied, “No, I took two rides—my first one and my last one.”
Ten years later at age 70, he told me he was building his last house. “I think for the rest of my life,” he said, “I’ll just do repair work.” When Dallas passed away, three of his fellow ministers conducted his funeral. Each one delivered a long sermon at the chapel. The funeral lasted three hours. A cold rain was falling as the procession arrived at the cemetery. The funeral director ushered all of the family and friends under a small tent, stopping the three ministers just outside in the rain. Each minister’s sermon lasted only a few minutes. Upon leaving the grave site, I mentioned to the funeral director that it was a smart move to have the ministers stand in the cold rain. He looked at me with a grin and said, “This is not my first rodeo.”
