You would need every page of this newspaper to tell Lillian G. Allen's life story -- and it still might not be enough.

The Post-Gazette's Bob Batz came close with a Sunday Magazine cover story on Ms. Allen that appeared March 9, 1997. But she was only in her late 80s then. Now the Oakland beautician is 100 years old, still styling hair, still writing, still telling off-color stories and still treasured by members of her church, Friendship Community.

On Saturday, more than 100 people came to her birthday party at the church. They celebrated the smart girl who read everything she could find; the sharp businesswoman who became the Hill District's style maven; and the globe-trotter who has lived more stories than she has time to write. This is only the bare bones of Ms. Allen's life. To know more, look up that 1997 article or even better, try to get a hair appointment with her. No one tells a story like Miss Lillian:

She was born Lillian Griffin on April 23, 1908, on the family farm outside Auburn, Ala. After her mother died, she came to Pittsburgh to live with an aunt and uncle when she was 6. They lived on the North Side, then moved to the Hill District. She left school at age 14, was sent back to Alabama and returned to Pittsburgh at 17 to work as a housekeeper.

In the 1930s, she married Eugene Allen and they had one daughter, Carolyn Gray of Oakland. Ms. Allen enrolled in the La Salle Training School in Beauty Culture and in 1938, got her state beautician's license. She worked at the Modern Beauty Salon on Centre Avenue, and in 1944, opened Your House of Beauty, also on Centre.

In 1953, the couple divorced and Ms. Allen went to Fairbanks, Alaska, for six months, opening "the first fully equipped licensed beauty shop for Negroes in Alaska." Upon returning to Pittsburgh, she continued running her salon until the 1968 riots that followed Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. She had a shop on Fifth Avenue for a time, then began working out of her home.

Ms. Allen took creative writing classes at Pitt, Community College of Allegheny County and Carlow University. She joined the OASIS Scribes writing group, and in 1997 an essay of hers was published in an anthology, "Men We Cherish: African-American Women Offer Praise and Appreciation for African-American Men" (Anchor Books). Ms. Allen contributed "My Special Agent," about her grandson, Ronald Layton, a Secret Service agent. Her memoir, "Your House of Beauty: Recollections of Lillian Allen," will be available through the church for $20.