Allen S. Kline (1893-1971)

Otis Adelbert Kline was born on July 1, 1891, in Chicago, Illinois, the older of two sons born to Louis A. Kline (1864-1938) and Ora K. (Sides) Kline (1870-1949). The younger brother, Allen Sides Kline, was born on December 19, 1893, in Rock Falls, Illinois. The two grew up west of Chicago in the area of Rock Falls and Sterling, Illinois.

Allen S. Kline graduated from Brown's Business College of Sterling and from Carthage College of Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he was in the class of 1916 or 1917 and majored in Latin. He worked as a bank clerk and in the insurance industry.

On August 15, 1917, Kline married Wahneta Marie Burner (1895-1924) in Hancock County, Illinois. She was a graduate of Carthage College, too, and had majored in English. She had taught at Bowen High School in Chicago in the year prior to her marriage. Allen Kline served in the U.S. Army during World War I in the judge advocate general's office.

Allen and Wahneta Kline had a son, George Louis Kline, who died just seven years ago, in 2014, at age ninety-five. He was a professor of philosophy and history. Sadly, Wahneta Marie (Burner) Kline died on May 8, 1924, at age twenty-eight. Her end came in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I wonder if she could have had tuberculosis.

Allen S. Kline remarried. His second wife was Martha (Read) Kline. The couple had I think three children.

Allen collaborated with his brother Otis on a single story, a three-part serial called "The Secret Kingdom," published in Amazing Stories in October to December 1929. That's his only credit in either the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDb) or The FictionMags Index. Here's a note from ISFDb:

Though mentioned in 'Science-fiction: The Gernsback Years' as being the son of Otis Adelbert Kline, there is no evidence that Otis was ever even married. He did have a brother though, Allen Sides Kline (1893-1971).

I'm not sure why the note says that "there is no evidence that Otis was ever even married." On the contrary, there isn't any evidence that Otis was not married. I'll have more on that in the next part of this series.

Allen S. Kline and his family lived in Boston and Norfolk, Massachusetts. He died on February 9, 1971, in Sanford, Maine. He was seventy-seven years old.

Otis Adelbert Kline & Allen S. Kline's Story in Amazing Stories

• "The Secret Kingdom" (three-part serial, Oct.-Dec. 1929)

Next: Otis Adelbert Kline's Wife & Children.

Allen S. Kline and his future wife, Wahneta M. Burner, in their college yearbook, the Carthage College Crimson Rambler, 1917.

Text copyright 2021, 2023 Terence E. Hanley