Allison Clyde Young
Jun 8, 1914 - Mar 22, 2008

Cheyenne Star
3-Apr-2008
Submitted by: Wanda Purcell

Allison Clyde Young died March 22, 2008, in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

He was born June 8, 1914, in Cheyenne, Oklahoma. He was the son of Andrew Clyde Young, whose family was among the4 earliest ranchers in the Texas panhandle and who settled in Oklahoma Territory during the Cheyenne-Arapaho Land Run, and of Della Cann Young, teacher, first School Superintendent in Day County (Oklahoma Territory), author, and first Oklahoma State Poet Laureate. Clyde attended school in the area, often in school where his mother was teaching. Upon graduating from Cheyenne High School, he moved to Stillwater, to attend Oklahoma A & M where he earned a Bachelors degree in engineering Co but in 1942 enlisted in the Navy.

Clyde attended officers training at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, where he also met his future wife and Navy Nurse, Lieutenant Hila Hamilton. Upon his graduation, the Navy assigned him to remain at the Academy as an instructor to other classes of "90-day Wonders." Following this, he was transferred to the first of several destroyers he served on as ship engineers. Clyde served mostly in the Pacific theatre from the Philippines north, including seeing action in the Battle of the China Sea. As his ship sailed toward Iwo Jima he received word that his parents were gravely ill and he was given emergency leave to return to help out on the family farm.

When he was able to return to active duty, the Navy assigned him to his last tour, joining a ship's crew of half German naval personnel and half Americans to deliver a captured German destroyer to post-war England. He shipped back to the US where he mustered out and traveled to southern Maryland to marry Hilda. They immediately left for Oklahoma and within months he returned to Tulsa to work for Dresser Engineering where he stayed for another 10 years.

In 1956, Clyde and Charles Cone established Oil States Engineering Co. For the next 25 years, they contracted with major oil pipeline companies, building compressor stations and refining facilities across the Plains, from the Texas Gulf coast to Montana & from Mississippi to New Mexico, in the last few years concentrating most of their effort in western Oklahoma, Kansas, and the Texas panhandle.

After Clyde retired, he and Hilda traveled widely, visited with friends and relatives across the country, and he pursued his interest in family genealogy.

In 1998, Hilda died and in 2003 he moved to southern California to be closer to his daughter and son-in-law, Susie and Steve Dever.

Thank You For Your Service!

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