Alan Kelso Young

August 8, 1927 - June 3, 2021

Alan K. Young, beloved uncle and friend, died peacefully on the evening of June 3, 2021, at Aegis Living in South San Francisco, with his family by his side. He was 93 years old.

Alan was born on August 8, 1927, to the late William McClay Young and Jeannette Kelso Young of Avalon, PA. He graduated from Avalon High School in 1945 and received a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude in English from Harvard College in 1949. A month after he started working as a copy editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, with the Korean War heating up, he was drafted into the Army. Alan served two years in the 497th Signal Service Photo Company in New Jersey and Germany, where he became an Army cinematographer and made many lifelong friends.

In 1952, in search of new opportunities, Alan moved to San Francisco and found a job at the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, one of the city’s four daily newspapers. After working as a copy editor for a couple of years, he enrolled in the graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley to seek a master’s degree in English, and to take advantage of the GI Bill. He then worked for one year as an English instructor at San Jose State College and San Mateo Junior College. In 1960 he took a job with Del Monte Foods at its San Francisco headquarters where he worked in the Public Relations Department as a writer and editor for the company magazine.

After seven years with Del Monte, Alan left the company to pursue his dream of becoming a full time fiction writer. After he failed to find a publisher for his first and only novel, he turned to writing short mystery stories, with which he had great success. He published his first short story in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in 1968, and over the next 13 years Alan had 15 stories published in mystery magazines. After the first six were published in EQMM in a little over two years, an award-winning novelist wrote in a review, “as one who took many years to break into this exacting market, I can only characterize Mr. Young’s achievement as a real Hat Trick.” Several were chosen for various hardcover anthologies of the best mystery stories of the year, including Alan’s last story, “Auction at McKay’s Corners,” which was reprinted in Most Wanted: The First Lineup: The Best of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine 1980-1985. Most of these stories were part of the Professor Ponsonby series about a professor emeritus of poetry and master code breaker who was called upon to solve puzzling crimes. These were classical mystery short stories in the formal or “puzzle” vain. One critic compared finding the solution to these entertaining mysteries to solving crossword puzzles in the New York Times at the end of the week.

After about four years, during which time his main source of income came from occasional freelance writing assignments, Alan returned to Del Monte while continuing to write mystery stories. In this new job, he wrote training programs and produced slide shows to illustrate them. After Del Monte became a subsidiary of R.J. Reynolds, he was promoted and given the title Manager of Internal Communications, where his responsibilities included being the company magazine editor and executive speech writer, which left him little time to write mysteries. A few years later R.J. Reynolds merged with Nabisco Brands, and in 1986 he was transferred to their headquarters in New Jersey where he became the Managing Editor of a new monthly television program for employees, dubbed “The Nabisco News.” He helped choose the stories, do the interviews and write the scripts, and for some programs he served as the anchor on the news desk. With frequent travel opportunities and monthly work sessions in a TV studio in Manhattan, while staying at the luxurious Essex House Hotel, this was a most enjoyable job. But it didn’t last and the “The Nabisco News” ended when the company was bought out in what was at the time the largest takeover in Wall Street history. In 1989 Alan retired and returned to San Francisco, where he lived for the next 30 years in an apartment in Pacific Heights overlooking the San Francisco Bay.

He was a member of the Mystery Writers of America, the Commonwealth Club and the Press Club in

San Francisco, where he liked to socialize and play poker with friends on Friday nights. He enjoyed attending the symphony, opera and theater with family and friends, and exploring the City and hiking the trails on Mt. Tamalpais. He traveled widely in the US and abroad throughout his life. In retirement Alan started researching family history and wrote a series of illustrated “Big Blue Books,” that provide in-depth accounts of the life of his parents and other relatives from Pennsylvania. His final writing project, “My Brief Mystery-Writing Career,” is based on his correspondence with Frederic Dannay, the prolific author and eminent editor of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. This extraordinary document is preserved in the Dannay Collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University.

Alan was a contented bachelor. His sister and only sibling, Joan Y. Leech, died in 2015. He is survived by five nephews and nieces who adored their uncle: Karen (Dave Hatton) of Irvine, CA; Robert (Diane) of Berkeley, CA; Ellen (Joe Ferreira) of Georgetown, TX; William (Amy) of Walnut Creek, CA; and Thomas (Kim) of Portland, OR. And their eight children and five grandchildren will forever cherish endearing memories of this witty and charming gentleman. Alan will be greatly missed for his intelligence, humor and kindness. He will always be remembered with love. His family wishes to extend their sincere thanks to the staff of Aegis Living in South San Francisco for their care and concern.

A family memorial will be held with the burial of his ashes at sea in September. For friends who wish to make a donation in his memory, a gift to the charity of your choice will be deeply appreciated.