O.C. Journalist Sandra B. Allen Is Dead at 52

Longtime Orange County journalist Sandra Baird Allen, who worked during the 1980s at a number of local newspapers, died last week of metastatic breast cancer at her home in Foster City, Calif. She was 52.

From 1983 to 1990, Allen worked at the Daily News Tribune in Fullerton, the Anaheim Bulletin and the Orange County Register. She was a city editor at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune in 1990 and a copy editor at the San Francisco Examiner from 1991 to 1994.

“She loved the business, loved being city editor and had a passion for print journalism,” said her husband, Chuck Allen. “And she loved a good 1st Amendment fight.”

In 1990, Allen was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer and was given two years to live. She and her husband left their Fullerton home and moved to the Bay Area to pursue treatment at Stanford Medical Center.

At Stanford, Allen joined a research project that sought to determine whether women with metastatic breast cancer live longer if they have group therapy.

The preliminary study proved that group therapy added an average of 18 months, and Allen lived about four years beyond expectation.

In addition to her husband, Allen is survived by daughters Jennifer, 28, of San Francisco and Kathleen, 25, a law student in Boston.

Donations may be made in Allen’s memory to the Sandra Allen Memorial Scholarship Fund, c/o Fullerton College Foundation Office, 321 E. Chapman Ave., Fullerton, CA 92832.