SCOTT-PRELORENTZOS, Alison

June 16, 1930 - May 26, 2023

Alison Scott-Prelorentzos, born June 16, 1930, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Great Britain, died May 26, 2023, in Edmonton at CapitalCare Grandview.

The only child of Alice and Blackett Scott of Fawdon, Alison attended St. Hilda's College Oxford, where she received an Honours BA in German, followed by an MLitt from the University of Oxford. In 1953, she came to Canada to study at Queen's University and finished only two years later as the Department of German's first PhD, with the Prize of the English Goethe Society in 1954.

In 1959, Alison accepted a position as assistant professor in the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, where she would teach for the next 26 years, rising to full professor in what became the Department of Germanic Languages.

During her academic career, Alison became known as a leading expert on the eighteenth-century German playwright Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.

Alison also demonstrated a capacity for cultivating and maintaining friendships across decades and continents. She had a special affection for children in general and her goddaughters in particular, to all of whom she was known as "Auntie Alison."

A traveller who visited almost every continent, Alison has a special fondness for Greece, where she met a widower and retired hotelier named Salvos Prelorentzos, who moved to be with her in Edmonton, where they were married in 1977. After her retirement in 1985 and until his death in 1995, they divided their time between her apartment in Edmonton near the university and his apartment in Marousi, outside of Athens. The Salvos Prelorentzos Peace Award was established in 1996 by Project Ploughshares to recognize Edmontonians and since 2022, is given out by the Edmonton Interfaith Centre for Education and Action (EICEA).

In the years following Salvos's death, Alison remained active, continuing to visit family and friends in Canada and Europe, attending scholarly conferences and serving on the executive of the Friendship Guild of All Saints' Anglican Cathedral in Edmonton and the University of Alberta's Association of Professors Emeriti. She was also an active member of EICEA.

After a series of strokes, Alison moved to Capital Care Grandview in 2018, where she lived until her death from Covid.

Alison is survived by her stepdaughter Margie Prelorentzos of Athens, Greece. She is also survived by her goddaughters Emma Nimmo of Edmonton, Joanna Forsyth of Issaquah, Washington, and Shirley Forster of Spain. She was predeceased by her goddaughter Naomi Schulze of Edmonton.

At her request, she was cremated and her ashes will be spread with those of her late husband Salvos on the Island of Tinos in Greece, where he was born. A funeral service will be held at 10:30 AM on 2024-05-25 at All SaintAnglican Cathedral, 10035-103 Street, Edmonton.