Remembering Lillie Belle Allen  (1941-1969)

By Samantha L. Dorm
July 21, 2026

Sometimes the strongest memories aren’t found in photographs. They’re found in a familiar scent.

If I close my eyes, I can still picture standing in the kitchen as a child, waiting for my mother to pull a pie from the oven. In our home during the 1970s it was usually sweet potato or apple pie. The warmth of the kitchen, the flour dusting the countertop, the anticipation of that first slice—those are memories that never truly fade. But in the South, there is another aroma that has become part of family tradition.

Blackberry pie.

Long before I knew the details of York’s painful history, I came to understand that the smell of a pie baking has an extraordinary way of transporting us back to the people we love. Science tells us that smell and taste are among the strongest triggers of memory, capable of carrying us across decades in an instant. For many families, recreating a loved one’s recipe becomes an act of remembrance—keeping their presence alive one meal, one gathering, one conversation at a time.

That truth came back to me during a recent conversation with my dear friend, Deborah. Despite all she has endured, Deb does not speak with bitterness. More often, she speaks with longing. She told me what a wonderful baker her mother was. Some days, she said, she can still smell the pies baking.

For just a moment, she is a little girl again. Not the daughter whose mother became a headline. Not the daughter whose family was forced to relive unimaginable trauma. Simply a little girl remembering her mother’s kitchen.

That is how I hope we remember Lillie Belle Allen today.

Not only as the young African American woman whose life was stolen on North Newberry Street in York, Pennsylvania, during the racial unrest of the summer of 1969. Not only as a symbol of injustice.

But as a mother. A daughter. A woman with dreams of her own. A talented baker whose children still remember the aroma that drifted from her kitchen.

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In July 2001, thirty-two years after her death, Lillie Belle Allen was exhumed from her resting place in Aiken, South Carolina, after the investigation into her murder was reopened.

She was transported to Aiken Medical Center, where an autopsy and full-body X-rays were conducted. Nearly five hours later, she was returned to the cemetery in a new silver casket that was carefully sealed within the grave vault. Waiting there was a simple basket of flowers. Attached was a card that read:

”Forever in Our Hearts.”
— Samantha Dorm and Family

Silbaugh Memorial generously provided the first permanent grave marker placed in her honor. They were small gestures. But they were offered in love. In empathy. In the hope of showing the Mosley/Allen family that another side of York also existed—a community willing to acknowledge their pain and embrace them with compassion.

At the time, I was working in the York County District Attorney’s Office. My involvement with the Mosley/Allen family, however, was never about my profession. It was personal.

Their grief reflected the experiences of generations of Black families who had been told to stay quiet. To move on. To avoid making trouble. It is a pain that settles in your throat, where sadness and anger become almost indistinguishable. A pain that cuts deeply. Yet still…

We rise.

Growing up in York, everyone seemed to know some version of what happened in 1969, even during the years when there was no active investigation. After the trials and convictions, our community responded in different ways. Some sought healing. Others chose silence. Even today, in 2026, there are still voices that say we should simply “leave the past in the past.”

But history does not disappear simply because we stop talking about it. Its lessons remain. Perhaps the greatest lesson comes not from the violence itself, but from the remarkable resilience of Lillie Belle Allen’s children. They have endured the unimaginable loss of their mother and then, decades later, were asked to relive that trauma as the investigation reopened.

Through it all, Deborah has remained one of the most gracious people I know. When she talks about her mother, it is rarely about July 21, 1969. It is about the kitchen. The laughter. The love. The pies.

So this year, I have decided to honor Lillie Belle Allen a little differently. I invite you to bake a pie. Better yet… Bake a blackberry pie. Share it with your children. Take a slice to a neighbor. Deliver one to a friend. Offer one to someone you have never met.

And while you’re sharing that pie, have a meaningful conversation about how we can do a better job of loving one another—even when we disagree, even when our backgrounds are different, even when history challenges us.

If baking isn’t your gift, visit a local bakery. Support someone whose hands still carry on the tradition. When you carry that warm pie home, pause for just a moment. Breathe in its aroma. Let it remind you of Lillie Belle Allen. Because she was so much more than a woman whose life ended in tragedy.

She was someone’s mother. Someone’s daughter. Someone’s friend. Someone who filled a kitchen with warmth and the sweet fragrance of homemade pies. That is a memory worth preserving.

To Deborah, Michael, and the entire Mosley/Allen family—

We remember her today.

May the aroma of a warm blackberry pie forever remind us that love, family, and kindness have the power to outlast hatred.

In loving memory of Lillie Belle Allen
July 21, 2026

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Written by: Samantha L. Dorm
#yorkblackhistory #America250PA

PHOTO: Submitted image created with ChatGPT to enhance the story but as not a factual depiction of the family.