Audrey Mcelrea Frost (1929-2004)
A nurse actively involved in her Community
Submitted by Gérard Coté (Lennoxville-ascot Historical and Museum Society) and Jean-marie Dubois
(Université de Sherbrooke)
Audrey-frost Street is a short length of street, opened in 2010 in Les Sommets de la Santé residential and commercial development across the road from the Fleurimont Hospital as a part of an area of streets dedicated to nurses. Since 2010, the development has been at a standstill, mostly due to disagreements between the City of Sherbrooke and the owners of neighboring lots. However, in early 2020, Sherplex, a new promoter, seems to be interested in going ahead.
Audrey Mcelrea was born in Sherbrooke on June 25, 1929. She was the eldest of the five children of teacher Helen Alberta Mcleod (1906-1991) and of farmer and railroad conductor Donald Angus Mcelrea (18991991). Mcleod and Mcelrea were married in 1928 in the Mcelrea home on Glenday Road in Huntingville. From 1935 to 1940, Audrey attended grammar school in Huntingville and from 1940 to 1945, she continued her education at Lennoxville High School. From 1947 to 1950, she attended the Sherbrooke Hospital School of Nursing (now the Argyll Pavilion). And from 1951 to 1953, she was part of a nurses’ foreign exchange with King Edward Memorial Hospital in Bermuda. She returned to the Sherbrooke Hospital in 1953-1954, and in 1954-1955, she continued her studies at Mcgill University. Following this, she was a Clinical Instructor at the Sherbrooke Hospital School of Nursing till 1958. In the meantime, in 1957, she married Gerald Frost (1929-1996) in Lennoxville’s St. George’s Church, They had three children : Kevin, Kirsten Gwynenth and Melanie.
From 1959 to when she retired in 1991, Audrey Frost continued her career as a nurse at the Sherbrooke Hospital. She was Assistant Nurse and Head Nurse for different Departments, finishing in 1986 as Health Service Supervisor. Audrey also served in 1988 on the Committee for both the Sherbrooke Alumnae Nurses Book and the Sherbrooke Hospital Centennial Book. Famous for her photography, she was active in a number of community groups: Sherbrooke Hospital Nurses Association, Golden Community Club, Lennoxville-ascot Historical and Museum
Society, Lennoxville Community Aide, Village Culturel (now called Friendship Day), Healthy Happy & Aging Information Day at Bishop’s University, a St. Marks Chapel volunteer and St. George’s Anglican Church as a Warden. In 2000, the City of Lennoxville named her Outstanding Citizen of the year. She died