Allen Sickles

Allen Sickles, 69, died Sept. 13, 2022 after some time in ill health. Allen was born Nov. 13, 1952 to Elna Kohlstedt Sickles Linville and Hardie Sickles in Billings, Montana. He grew up in Broadus, Montana, graduating from Powder River County District High School in 1971. He went through 12 years of school, never missing a day, not a single absence. As an adult he preferred city life but he always said Broadus was the greatest place in the world to grow up.

Allen was the little brother to three older sisters. A friend marveled that he survived living with four women. Sister Betty (Liz) remembers that he would always say, "Hello, this is your baby brother," when he called. He always had more freedom to roam the neighborhood than his sisters, or at least he took it. His parents were divorced when he was six, so with a single mother life was often a struggle but Allen never found it that way. He always found ways to make money, even as a five-year-old he'd earn a few nickels doing little chores in the neighborhood.

Later he became a projectionist at the movie theater, drove tractors for local ranchers, learned locksmithing and worked at the lumberyard. His sister Caryl posted some old articles about his musical abilities which earned him a choir trip to Carnegie Hall and a European tour, and a photo op at the White House with President Nixon. After high school he joined the Navy and was sent to Vietnam aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. He enjoyed being a radioman ala Robin Williams but the Vietnam experience which included riots on the Kittyhawk traumatized him. A book, "Troubled Water, Race, Mutiny, and Bravery on the USS Kitty Hawk", by Gregory Freeman, details some of the violence he witnessed during an intense deployment of 247 days of nonstop bombing of N. Vietnam. He ended his stint in the Navy in Portland, Oregon which became his lifelong home.

Allen loved Portland. He became a runner, a bicyclist and a motorcyclist, and took part in many competitions in all those sports. He loved showing Portland off to all his family and especially his mother. He was an avid fan of the old jazz scene in Portland and took friends and family to several performances and introduced them to many of the musicians that he sometimes hung with. Allen would often enthuse with his people about different things: a good movie, the Tour de France, the Olympics, a good restaurant. His career was in trucking, delivering beverages in a wide circle around Portland. He claimed to know every back door of every business in Portland. He once had a route on the Toutle River and often delivered Coca Cola to Harry Truman on Spirit Lake. With Mt. St. Helen's threatening to blow he always had a just-in-case little cave among the Coke cases.

Allen was married twice and had three children whom he loved dearly, Kent Graves (Veronica), Heidi Bradley (Alex), and Michael Sickles (Cherise). His son Captain Michael Sickles, a career Marine, died at his desk at Camp Pendleton, nearly three years ago, after having served three dangerous missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and receiving two Purple Hearts. Allen was deeply grieved by Michael's death and by then was in ill health himself. He went into a downward spiral. Recently he began to feel that he might get his "burn" back, but it was too late.

After a fall he went into rehab and there died peacefully in his sleep. He was preceded in death by his son Michael, mother and step-father, Elna and Warren Linville, and his father Hardie Sickles. Allen is survived by his son, Kent Graves (Veronica), his daughter, Heidi Bradley (Alex), and his daughter-in-law, Cherise Reynolds Sickles, five grandchildren, two step-grandchildren, his three sisters, Barb Archer (Tom Tully), Liz Cheeseman (Bob), Caryl Semmler (Maynard), many nieces and nephews, and many biking, hiking, and cycling buddies. Interment was at Willamette National Cemetery, Oct. 14, 2022.