George L. Van Allen (1851-1916) was born in Bethlehem, New York, and died in Victorville, California. In 1881 he married Ida L. Van Allen (b. Bailey) in Phelps, New York, and they resided in Schenectady, New York, moving to Syracuse, New York, sometime in the late 1890s; and then to Buffalo, New York, in the early 1900s. Van Allen was a practicing physician for most of his career and found his way to Christian Science upon his wife's experience of healing in the mid-1880s. In 1887 and 1888 he wrote to Mary Baker Eddy to order Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and several other items of Christian Science literature. He then studied Christian Science with Edmund Russell Hardy, one of Eddy's students. He was a member of Second, and later Third, Church of Christ, Scientist, Buffalo, New York, and joined The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 5, 1901. His wife joined on June 2, 1900. They both became practitioners listed in The Christian Science Journal, George from 1902 to 1916 and Ida from 1924 to 1932. He passed away while traveling from New York to San Diego, California.

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