Allen B. Clayton, teacher and coach

Posted 4/10/13

A memorial service for Allen B. Clayton,, a longtime music teacher and soccer coach at Germantown Friends School, will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday, April 27, at Germantown Friends Meeting, 47 W. …

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Allen B. Clayton, teacher and coach

Posted

A memorial service for Allen B. Clayton,, a longtime music teacher and soccer coach at Germantown Friends School, will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday, April 27, at Germantown Friends Meeting, 47 W. Coulter St. in Germantown. Mr. Clayton, who was 85, died Dec. 27 of cancer at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Maine.

Until his retirement in 1993, Mr. Clayton had been a member of the Germantown Friends faculty for 39 years. Earlier he had taught music at Haverford Friends School and Montgomery County Day School.

A musician himself, he played cello, viola da gamba and recorder as well as jazz piano in many groups. In retirement he played piano at the Island Nursing Home in Deer Isle, Maine, and at Parker Ridge in Blue Hill, Maine. He sang in the Bagaduce Chorale, headquartered in Blue Hill.

Mr. Clayton and his wife, Julia, had lived in Mt. Airy for 45 years before moving to their summer home in Sedgwick, Maine, in 1998.

During summers, Mr. Clayton taught canoeing and led trips at Keewaydin Camp in Vermont and later at Robin Hood Camp in Maine. He played all sports, especially soccer and tennis.

In 1968 he was a Fulbright Exchange music teacher at St. George's School for Girls in Edinburgh, Scotland. He subsequently taught at the Aberdeen Grammar School and St. Margaret's School for Girls in Aberdeen, Scotland.

A Quaker, he was a member of Germantown Friends Meeting and, in later years, of the Eggemoggin Meeting in Sargentville, Maine. In retirement he and his wife were resident Friends for a year at Quaker Centers in Melbourne, Australia, and Auckland, New Zealand.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Clayton is survived by a daughter, Sarah Elmendorf, of Peru, N.Y.; sons Bart, of Ellsworth, Maine, and Robert, of Plymouth Meeting; five grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. A brother, Robert Clayton Jr., preceded him in death.

The memorial service on April 27 will be followed by a musical tribute to Mr. Clayton put on by Germantown Friends School. Memorial donations may be made to the Scholarship Fund of Germantown Friends School, 31 W. Coulter St., Philadelphia, PA 19144. – WF

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