Obituary: Delva Carol Allen

 I shared the stone and some pictures of Grandpa Delva on Tuesday.  This is his obituary that appeared in the local paper.  Dying at the end of World War II, two of his sons were still in the service.  Uncle Howard chose not to return for the service, wanting to remember his father as he had left him.  My father, although living in Grand Rapids, had been wounded in 1943 and was discharged and home for his fathers last days. 

From the 13 September 1945 Fremont Times Indicator:

Delva C Allen, 52, Passes Friday in Ann Arbor

Funeral Services Were Held Tuesday with Interment in Clark Cemetery
Funeral services were held Tuesday afternoon at the Boven Funeral Home for Delva C Allen, 52 years old, who died Friday in Ann Arbor. 
The services were in charge of the Rev. E. D. Jeffries, pastor of the Dayton Center Wesleyan Methodist church and burial took place in Clark Cemetery.
Mr Allen is survived by his parents, Mr and Mrs O D Allen of Grand Rapids, his widow, Edna, four sons, Floyd of Fremont, S/Sgt Donald of Camp Morey, Texas, S/Sgt Howard in France, and Robert of Grand Rapids; four daughters Mrs Florence Burton of Grand Rapids, Mrs Elizabeth Zuwerink of Fremont, Mrs Glenna DePlonty of Fremont, and Joyce at home; a step-brother Clayton Cross of Grand Rapids; two sisters, Mrs Darrell Cross of Napoleon and Mrs Claud Wilson of Terrence California.

I also find amusing that Uncle Clayton is referred to as a step-brother.  He was also a brother-in-law.  What was the reason for not calling him brother-in-law?  Was step-brother considered closer? In one of those examples of the family tree being more of a tangled bush, Grandpa's widowed father Omar, had married Grandma's divorced (Horrors!) mother Carrie.  Thus Grandma's mother was both mother-in-law and step-mother to Grandpa.  
Genealogy can be so confusing.