‘Truly extraordinary’

Maryon Allen’s spot in the history books was earned through her brief stint as a U.S. senator, one of only two women senators ever to come from Alabama.

For those who knew her personally, however, Allen was far better defined by traits that had nothing to do with Congress: a painfully sharp wit, a passion for books and English and Scottish culture, a no-nonsense attitude and a pink Cadillac Eldorado with a vanity plate reading “MARYON.”

Patrick Mullins, one of her six grandchildren, said Allen was strong in the face of a life filled with adversity, and she passed down both her toughness and many of her hobbies to the younger generations. She passed away on July 23 at the age of 92.

“She was very ahead of her time. … It very much shaped who I am,” Mullins said.

Allen served in the U.S. Senate five months, having been asked to fulfill the remainder of her husband’s term after his death of a heart attack in 1978. She returned to Birmingham after an unsuccessful re-election campaign and three years as a columnist at the Washington Post.

Allen’s path to Washington, D.C. did not run straight, Mullins said. She was born in Mississippi but raised in Birmingham, and she studied journalism at the University of Alabama but dropped out a year after marrying Joshua Mullins in 1946.

They had three children together before divorcing in 1959. Patrick Mullins said his grandmother found herself alone, with three young children to raise and no family support, and she vowed her children’s lives would not be worse for having a single mother. 

She raised all three while working first as an insurance agent, then as a journalist for the Shades Valley Sun and later the Birmingham News. Allen and her children lived in Mountain Brook, on Euclid Avenue, for several years during this period, Mullins said, and his father still lives in the city.

She met Jim Allen, then the state’s lieutenant governor, in 1964. They married after only four months together, adding two stepchildren to the family and landing the role of a politician’s wife in Maryon Allen’s lap. She followed her husband on his rise to the seat of U.S. senator, but Mullins said she refused to be “just a senator’s wife” and was writing regular columns up until her husband’s death.

Jim Allen served in the Senate from 1969 to his death in June 1978. Then, Maryon Allen got a very important phone call.

“He had died in her arms, and she was called by [Alabama Gov.] George Wallace. He said, ‘I want you to become senator, on the contingency that you’re going to let me run after five months.’ And she said, ‘No, I’m not going to accept that contingency. I’m going to run.’”

She served from June until November of that year. There was one other woman in the Senate at that time, Muriel Humphrey of Minnesota, who was also finishing out her husband’s term. The only other Alabama woman to serve in the U.S. Senate was Dixie Bibb Graves, who served a similarly brief term of Aug. 20, 1937 to Jan. 10, 1938.

Mullins said his grandmother always described her Senate colleagues as gentlemanly and gracious to her, but he said it had to have been a hard task to face.

“I can’t imagine what it was like for her to go into the U.S. Senate and face 98 men,” Mullins said. “I think without women like her, this world would be very different, and she had the courage to stand up for herself in the face of a lot of discrimination, adversity, tragedy, all these things.”

Maryon Allen served those five months while dealing with not only the loss of her husband, but also the loss of her brother, who died in a plane crash while working on her re-election campaign.

What ended Allen’s bid for the remaining two years of her husband’s term was an interview with the Washington Post, which included quotes that appeared disparaging toward Wallace. Mullins said he and his family believe she was likely to get elected had her tendency toward blunt honesty and cutting wit not been part of that interview.

“She was not afraid to tell you exactly how she felt about you,” Mullins said. “That probably hurt her political aspirations.”

After losing the Democratic primary for the seat, Maryon Allen went to work for the Washington Post for three years, writing a column called “Maryon Allen’s Washington” about politicians and life in the capital.

Once she returned to Birmingham, Maryon Allen took up another talent of hers to start a new business, restoring antique wedding and christening gowns out of her home on Cliff Road in Highland Park. Mullins, who lived with his grandmother for a few years as a young adult, said he always saw the pictures of her with politicians and traveling the world when he was growing up, but he didn’t realize their importance until years later.

“I did not realize … that she had this unusual life,” he said.

She continued working on dresses until about four years before her death, Mullins said, and her handiwork earned a place in several magazines and even a visit by Martha Stewart. Mullins said his grandmother’s sharp mind stuck with her, and she would stay attuned to politics and world news.

Mullins said the lasting legacy of Maryon Allen is her role as a progressive, fiercely independent woman in a time where that was not the norm.

“When you were around her, you knew you were in the presence of someone who was so beyond the normal person,” Mullins said. “She truly was extraordinary.”