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Victim was beautiful, constantly changing

The family of Louise Allen, who died in a car wreck Monday, recalls her wild hair colors, holiday flour fights and loving nature.

By GINA PACE
Published October 11, 2006

DADE CITY - Louise Allen was preparing to move to Arkansas and live with her dad. She and two friends set out Monday to pick up last-minute items before her trip.

But the 21-year-old who loved writing letters and playing with children will never make it to Arkansas.

Authorities say the Plymouth Neon she and her friends were riding in ran a stop sign and collided with a Chevrolet pickup on Darby Road about noon that day.

Allen and Jason Reed, 23, of Zephyrhills were killed. Donnelle Irland, 18, remained in critical condition Tuesday at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, according to a spokesman.

The driver of the truck, Roian Stephens, 48, was treated and released from East Pasco Medical Center on Monday.

Laura Hodge, Allen's mother, looked at a picture of the mangled Neon on Tuesday as tears welled and she struggled to understand what happened.

She wasn't sure if Allen was driving, as both Allen and Reed had been thrown from the car. The Florida Highway Patrol is still investigating and hasn't determined who was behind the wheel. To Hodge, it didn't make sense, she said, because Allen always wore her seat belt and was a cautious driver.

Instead of celebrating her 44th birthday with Allen, Hodge took phone calls from family members and tried to make funeral arrangements. She decided to have her daughter cremated.

* * *

When Justin Rogers, 24, describes his younger sister, he sums her up in two words: ever changing.

Allen changed her hair color weekly - from burgundy to blond to purple. For a while, she was into piercings - her nose, eyebrows, ears. Then she'd take them out.

"She had hazel eyes," Hodge said. "But they would change color with her mood."

Her mood could be hard to predict. Allen was bipolar, and hadn't been on medication for about a year, Hodge said.

That's why she was going to Arkansas.

The plan was to get on her dad's insurance and get treatment. She wanted to go back to school, get her GED and eventually work with animals, her mom said.

"She was a beautiful person," said her sister Leeann Bloodworth, 29. "Through her faults and the rough times, she was the one I could cuddle up with on the couch and watch TV."

Bloodworth said that her sister was constantly playing with kids, including Bloodworth's three young children, Allen's younger sister and other relatives.

"She was always out there getting as dirty as the kids, starting water fights," Bloodworth said.

The family had a tradition: every year when baking Christmas cookies Allen would start a flour fight.

"There wasn't one inch of the kitchen floor that wasn't white," Bloodworth said.

* * *

Hodge hasn't spoken to the families of her daughter's friends who were in the car. She worries about how they are holding up, and how Irland is doing at the hospital.

Irland and Allen were such close friends that they constantly wrote each other letters - even when they were in the same house, Hodge said.

Irland's and Reed's families could not be reached for this story.

Hodge said she will miss how open and loving her daughter was.

"She always tried to see the good in everybody and everything," she said.

[Last modified October 10, 2006, 22:56:12]