Rev. Allen C. Craig Craft

Allen Craig Craft was born on September 19th, 1955, in Waterloo, Iowa, to Duane and Joanne (Wilt) Craft. The bouncing baby boy came home to the farm to meet his big sister Deb and it seems that’s really where the trouble began.

Farm kids, in general, have plenty of stories best kept secret from their mothers-for the sake of their sanity and their hearts. Unfortunately for Joanne, she probably knew too many.

As we move through these recollections, if you were there, or just think you remember it better, don’t worry about it. Tell your version some other time.

The following is a list of times Dad lived to tell the tale, and one time that he didn’t.

1960 – When Allen was 4 or 5 and Debbie a year older, the seed bags for planting were stacked up high in the garage – naturally they needed to climb it. As they crawled around and played, Allen slipped and fell, landing directly on an old airplane engine pipe that punctured a couple of inches into his little back. No one could quite remember if his tetanus shot was up to date, so to the doctor they went. A quick and grim examination found that the pipe had gone “straight through the fat and into the meat.” This past winter Al was trying to trace the stories behind all of his scars and pointed out a faint one on his lower back that he didn’t recall. We’re fairly certain this is it.

About 1966 – Debbie and Allen, while the Cedar River was running high, took a walk along the bank and came across a rowboat. Looking around, not seeing anybody and not recognizing the boat, they decided to take it out onto the river. An unrecalled and indeterminate time into the voyage, the passengers realized there were no oars in the boat. In the quick current they drifted a good distance downstream before eventually managing to steer back to shore, pull the boat out, abandon the craft and walk themselves home. Wonder whose boat it was and if they found it again.

It was around this age that much of Debbie and Allen’s free time started to get slightly more complicated. That’s about when their little sister, Angie, got into the action, tagging along with the big kids. We figured the adventures slowed down with little Angie at their side… but maybe the three of them just got sneakier about it – or – better at keeping things quiet.

In 1968, around the age of 13, Allen was running the field cultivator near home as a storm rolled in. Standing on the platform of the John Deere A, he heard the sharp sizzle of lightning and felt a sudden slap on the back of the head. The next thing he knew, he had one foot on the platform and one on the axle and no idea how he’d gotten that way… regardless he hopped down and ran for the shop. Did he get struck or did it just strike really close? For some, an experience like that might lead to more caution during thunderstorms and eventually plenty of warnings to one’s kids…but we literally just heard this story two days ago.

Throughout his teen years, it seems it was just one thing after another.

When Allen was 14, he had to make hay while the sun shined -and apparently also while he was coming down with the measles because, when they brought his lunch to the field, the poor guy was covered in spots.

Around 16, there was the time he had the backhoe on some uneven ground (exact location is up for debate) but it tipped on him. He was able to jump out the high side as it went over.

And yet another time after “really not feeling well” for a couple of days, he finally ended up at the hospital-and left without his appendix.

Teenage Allen would often pack his school books and trombone in the tractor to get to school. He’d leave the tractor and wagon at the co-op and walk the rest of the way or catch a ride with whoever happened by.

Speaking of trombones – Dad was totally in a band in high school and by all accounts, they were really very good. The band’s most famous performance took place in the baskets of a ferris wheel over the streets of La Porte City. There was another show though, with a smaller audience, that had a more lasting impact.

In 1972, the Brass Addicts were hired to play a high school grad party just outside of town. It was there that the graduate’s younger sister, Joyce Shelton, first laid eyes on Allen. Young Allen and Joyce crossed paths once or twice more over the years but it was in the summer of 1975, while home from his first year at Iowa State and cruising the strip, that Allen leaned out the window of his Torino to chat with Joyce in her Volkswagen:

‘You want to go to a dance?”

“Oh… I don’t think I’m dressed for it”

“You look great!”

Talk about foreshadowing. There are probably still a few people out there who haven’t seen Joyce and Allen dance together, but not many.

The pair were married on February 4th, 1978 at St Paul’s United Methodist Church in La Porte City in the middle of a blizzard. Pretty sure Al took the car into the ditch on the way to the reception. Of course.

Mom tried her best but seriously he just kept getting into shit.

August 20th, 1980, right around 7 a.m. The power had gone out in a storm the night before and the waterer wasn’t working in the cattle lot. He needed to climb down into the dark well pit and had brought a lighter to see. Methane gas from the cattle lot had sunk into the pit and when the lighter lit, the gas exploded. He was able to climb up and out of the pit, somehow crossed the manure-filled lot, and got over the barbed wire fence to his pickup, losing fluids from the burns all over his arms. He made it to the nearest neighbor’s door and an ambulance was called. Dad was in the hospital for 3 weeks with 2nd degree burns on his arms from the knuckles to the armpits. Allen couldn’t hold their brand new baby – but little Danny spent a lot of time ‘propped up’ on Dad.

Summer of 1982. With baby Laura on the way, Allen and Joyce were adding an addition onto the small cabin they were living in. Al fell through the old roof and later, off of the new roof. No broken bones. No big deal.

Mid 80s. After their youngest child, Chris, was born, Allen had loaded all the fat cattle into the straight truck. One of the steers got turned around in the truck and headed back down the chute, so Allen jumped in to drive it forward. But the rest of the cattle also got turned around and began running into the chute. Allen fell and was trampled. Once the cattle had cleared, he managed to get up and climb out. His glasses had been knocked from his face and flattened and somehow he came out okay. (Mom was there for that one)

There was a close call on one of the Oliver tractors. Allen in the seat, Danny perched on the platform beside. As the tractor was running, a hydraulic hose burst and flames shot out from beneath the seat. Allen launched himself over the fender, hit the ground running and yanked Danny off the platform in one quick motion. Over fast and nobody hurt. And that’s an Oliver for you.

Dad just didn’t sweat the small stuff. A lot of times he didn’t even sweat the big stuff. When his kids got old enough to start causing their own trouble, he kept it pretty level headed. Unless you wanted to slam a door and then you might lose that door for awhile. But he trusted us to get out of our own scrapes and when we couldn’t, he’d grab the chain and pull us out of the ditch.

He was strong and a creative thinker. He was gentle and playful. He was doing air karate moves in the kitchen once with Dan and managed to break his toe. He loved music. He taught his kids to love music. Albeit not necessarily the same music. Allen was in an acapella group and a barbershop quartet – you might have gotten a singing valentine from him. The kind of guy to always just be hugging and kissing his wife while the kids made a face. He’d spin the cereal bowls onto the table before breakfast. He’d make the sugar bowl talk. He’d play the same 3 note tune on the piano over and over as we’d get out of bed at 6 a.m. before school and he’d sing “there she is…Miss America” as his daughter walked into the kitchen, half awake. Just really a lot of big energy in the mornings.

Dad’s first concert was Three Dog Night. His mom called him buddy and fella. He had a firm handshake and gave a really warm hug. He’d do the Tim Allen grunt thing from Home Improvement. Like still. 30 years later. He got into wine…and making his own. Pastor Al’s Cranberry Wine was a favorite and if you kept a bottle on the shelf too long he’d remind you that “you might want to get that one drank”.

Allen went back to school at the University of Dubuque in 2008, completing his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Dubuque in 2012. He went on to obtain a Master of Divinity through University of Dubuque Theological Seminary in 2014. He was ordained in 2016. He was Pastor Al in Colesburg, Lamont – Aurora, Eldora and back home in La Porte City in 2020, retiring in 2024. And that was all so wonderful. And we are all so proud of him. He grew in faith and fellowship and community. But to his kids, he wasn’t a pastor. He was just dad. Funny. Flawed. Dependable.

Allen was a lifetime member of St. Paul United Methodist Church in La Porte City.

He was a kind and loving man with a gentle heart. He was held in the highest regard by his family, friends, church members, and professionals. Above all, he loved and cherished his family, especially his adoring wife, Joyce.

Allen died in the afternoon on Friday, August 8th, 2025. He is survived by his beloved wife, Joyce, three children, Dan (Jen) Craft, Laura (Allen) Mast, and Chris (Anni) Craft, all of La Porte City, and grandchildren, Willa, Finn, Briar, Hinley, Ashton, and Laney; two sisters, Deb (Lee) Rottinghaus of Jesup and Angie (Mike) Reinert of Marion; sister-in-law Kathy Ott of Cedar Falls; his grandmother Sue Craft of Prescott, AZ, and so many loved family members and friends. Allen is preceded in death by his parents, Duane and Joanne Craft and Joyce’s parents, Don and Mabel Shelton, and a nephew, Ben Rottinghaus.