He was born in Ridgeway, Missouri, to Elsie Mae Beaks Allen and Josiah Allen, a "jack of all trades." Edward, who mostly grew up near Breckenridge, where his father managed his sister's farm, attended a one-room schoolhouse before going on to Breckenridge High School, where he graduated in 1943. Inducted into the U.S. Army Air Forces, he was trained in gunnery and was assigned to a B-24 crew as a tail gunner. Edward flew to the South Pacific in "June or July" of 1944 where he was joined the 380^th Bombardment Group, 530^th Bombardment Squadron in Port Moresby, New Guinea. He flew missions to Formosa and French Indochina, hitting Japanese airbases, as well as flying nighttime "harassment missions" to bomb enemy positions. "This kept them in the foxholes," he says. After flying forty missions, Edward sailed back to America on a Victory ship, arrived in San Francisco in early August of 1945, and was discharged in Santa Ana, California. He recalls how he and four other men drove night and day to reach Kansas City. There, Edward took a bus to reach Breckenridge, where he walked three miles to his family farm home. On August 18, 1946, he married Carol Sage. They would have four children, nine grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. The couple moved into a vacant house on the farm where Edward worked for eight years. He joined Inactive Reserves, but was called up for duty and began his post-war Air Force career. He served in Japan for three years and in guidance systems of rockets. Stationed in Florida in the early 1960s, he watched the Mercury astronauts jog on the beach. Edward retired as a master sergeant from the Air Force on March 1, 1971 while at Barksdale Air Force Base. He and his wife worked for several years in her business, Plaque Party.