Dorothy Allen was a feisty little lady, standing barely 5 feet tall.
But put a 14-pound bowling ball in her hand and she was a powerhouse.
Allen was a competitive bowler for more than 30 years. She was still knocking down pins in her 80s, even though she had to cart an oxygen tank with her after she successfully beat lung cancer. It was only in the last two years, after she fell and cracked a rib, that Allen retired her bowling shoes.
"She used a 14-pound ball, but she downsized to 12, then she bought a 10," said her daughter, Judy Luckey. "As long as she was able, she was bowling."
After her fall, Allen moved in with her daughter. Luckey still has all of her mother's bowling gear. They both had slender fingers, and Luckey sometimes borrowed one of her mother's balls when they rolled a few frames with a senior league.
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Luckey and her brothers, Lynn Barnaby and Wade Allen, a former professional bowler, will have to follow through without their mother now. Dorothy died July 4. She was 85.
Allen was born and raised in Kentucky. She moved to Tucson in the early 1950s with her first husband, Horace Barnaby, and their daughter. Barnaby had a good job as an appliance salesman, and even though their marriage didn't last — they divorced a few years after arriving in Tucson — Allen made a long-term commitment to Tucson Electric Power, retiring after 31 years.
After her divorce, Allen married electrical contractor Samuel Allen and they had a son. But in 1969, when Wade was just 3, his father died, leaving Allen a single mother.
"She was a tough lady," Wade Allen said. "She always expected, demanded, the best out of everybody, as she did herself. I think it was pretty impressive she raised me all by herself at a time when single parenting wasn't typical."
Allen didn't remarry. Instead, she spent her time working, raising her son — her daughter by then had started a family of her own — and improving her game.
"Dottie was a feisty little bowler," friend Marty Kelly said.
"She was very competitive. She liked to get in there and win. She was a great gal. She was quite a bowler."
Over the decades, the women competed together on the Bowling Belles team, a part of the Bowlerettes club; the 500 Club; and in the Belles & Beaus league. They last played together just before Allen broke her rib.
As Bowlerettes, Allen and the other women were required to score an average of 149 or more per game. With the Bowlerettes, Allen traveled to every local, state and national competition.
In 1999, Allen was honored with the Arizona State Women's Bowling Association President's Award for her participation in bowling and her promotion and support of the sport, said Eva Lemoine, vice president of the Arizona chapter of the United States Bowling Conference.
"She was a very determined bowler," said Char Percox, Bowlerettes treasurer, who last saw Allen compete in a 2003 tourney.
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