Trip To Egypt Ends Tragically For Pt. Orchard Mom, Daughter

Prayer service

Prayers for the victims of EgyptAir Flight 990 will be included in an All Souls' Day Mass at 7:30 tonight at St. James Cathedral, Ninth Avenue and Marion Street, Seattle.

Dorothy Allen loved to travel, whether it was cross-country trips in the Cessna 182 her husband piloted or Puget Sound excursions in the family's 36-foot boat.

When her husband, Robert, died about seven years ago, the independent-minded woman kept traveling - touring Switzerland, South American rain forests, and Australia and the Great Barrier Reef.

Though Dorothy, 59, usually took trips alone, she was thrilled that her 28-year-old daughter, Jean Allen, decided to join her on her most recent adventure, a two-week Elderhostel tour of Egypt. Egypt held special appeal for Jean, who earned an anthropology degree in the spring of 1997 at Central Washington University and read avidly about ancient civilizations.

The mother and daughter were aboard the EgyptAir Boeing 767 that plunged into the Atlantic Ocean early Sunday shortly after it departed from John F. Kennedy International Airport. All 217 people aboard are presumed dead.

Along with the Allens, four other people from the Northwest - two couples from Oregon - were aboard the flight.

Pat Haley, who works in the student-affairs office at Central, said Jean Allen participated in a four-week ethnographic field trip to Barbados as a graduate student in the summer of 1997.

"Her dream was to go to Egypt. This trip would have fulfilled that dream," said Haley.

"This is the one trip my sister was going to go on," said Steve Allen, Dorothy Allen's son and Jean Allen's brother. "The time worked out, and Jean had been reading about Egypt, and they'd been planning to go on this for like a year."

The two lived together in Port Orchard, in the house where Dorothy and her husband raised their two children.

Like the rest of her family, Dorothy had a busy schedule - working as a pharmacist for the local Albertson's supermarket for the past decade. Still, she often had everyone over for Sunday dinners.

"She adored her grandchildren and they adored her," Steve Allen said. "And they adored their aunt.

"Jean was single, and didn't have kids, and my kids were a huge part of her life. She loved just getting down on the ground and playing with them and making them laugh."

Her cheerfulness also was appreciated by her co-workers at Adventure Travel, the Port Orchard travel agency where she had worked since last spring.

"Jean was so sweet and bubbly," company owner Launa Blahm said.

Though she worked in travel, Jean didn't plan the Egyptian tour. The trip was a gift from her mother.

"They were really close, and similar in a lot of ways," Steve Allen said of his mother and sister. The two attended United Methodist Church in Port Orchard, and Jean often joined Dorothy on her long walks. Jean loved watching gymnastics; Dorothy was an ice-skating fan.

"There will not be a single person out there who will have anything bad to say about Dorothy," said Evan Mayo, her manager at Albertson's. The company was offering counseling to distraught co-workers, who in turn spoke with grieving customers yesterday as they received word of Dorothy's death.

An only child, Dorothy spent at least part of her youth in Mississippi, where her 90-year-old mother still lives. She graduated from pharmacy school at Florida State University.

"The only solace most of us find," he said, "was that she was doing what she enjoyed."

Janet Burkitt's phone-message number is 206-515-5689. Her e-mail address is jburkitt@seattletimes.com