At 90, Malvernite is as active as ever

Being “everywhere” has been a constant in Audrey Morrow’s life throughout the 60 years she has called Malverne home.

A native Islander, Morrow was born on Feb. 16, 1922, to Mabel and Charlie Steele, who raised her in Lynbrook, where they’d lived since 1912. Photographs from then show the Steele residence and surrounding homes still standing a century later, fronting unpaved streets.

Morrow comes by her spirit of volunteerism and community involvement honestly: her father, prominent in the Lynbrook business community, was a member of the Lynbrook Elks Club, Lions Club and Exchange Club. Occasionally people still approach Morrow and speak with affection of her father — quite a tribute to a man who died in 1955.

She had never thought of herself as a “joiner,” but Morrow did join a number of organizations, including the Malverne American Legion Auxiliary Unit 44 in 1952 as a support to her husband, Stewart, who was commander of Post 44 that year. Morrow’s husband later served as village mayor from 1974 to 1986.

She didn’t realize it at the time, but Morrow was setting out on an odyssey of community service that continues to this day, almost six decades later. She became the unit’s recording secretary in 1956 and has held that office continuously since then. In 2006 she was honored at a surprise testimonial dinner recognizing her 50 years of service in that capacity. Last year she was once again surprised, this time with a life membership in the unit. She is only the third member of the Unit to be so honored.

More than 30 years ago, though she had never served as the unit’s president, Morrow was designated a past president because she had been the “right arm” of so many presidents over the years. When the unit celebrated its 80th anniversary two years ago, Morrow was on the committee for the anniversary banquet and obtained many of the ads that appeared in the commemorative journal. She marched with her unit in Malverne’s Memorial Day parade for 50 consecutive years, until she was 85. Now she rides in the parade, one of the very few concessions she has made to age.

By no means has Morrow’s involvement been limited to the Auxiliary: she became a member of the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Malverne Public Library in 1962, and has served as recording secretary continuously since 1965. She has likewise served for a number of years as recording secretary of the Women’s Club of Malverne, which honored her 10 years ago when she became the first member of the club to reach 80. Morrow’s seemingly boundless energy and enthusiasm belie the fact that she turned 90 this month. She is the oldest active member of every organization to which she belongs.

Long involved in veterans’ concerns, about a decade ago Morrow and her son, the Rev. Michael Morrow, assumed the chairmanship of Books for Veterans, a program that involves the community in raising money for the purchase of reading materials for patients at the Northport VA Hospital. Thanks to the Morrows’ hard work and passionate belief in this program, funds raised have quadrupled over the past decade, to almost $3,000 last year.

Morrow’s volunteer efforts have taken many forms over the past six decades. During the l950s and ’60s, she served as a driver for the American Red Cross. Among other things, she drove Malverne senior citizens to their weekly meetings. She continued to provide that service even after the 1968 death of her mother, who had been a member of the Malverne Senior Citizens.

A devout Catholic, Morrow has been a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Church since 1950. For a number of years she ran the Book Booth at the Rosary Altar Society’s annual fall festival. Later she was a member of the choir, and only withdrew very reluctantly in recent years when the arthritis in her knees made the climb up the steep stairs to the choir loft no longer manageable.

Morrow’s good works are not confined to Malverne. From 1988 to 1994 she served as a volunteer in the Cancer Care Unit at Mercy Medical Center.

A woman of varied interests and talents, both an old-fashioned girl and a thoroughly modern woman, Morrow became a licensed insurance broker in the 1940s — rare for a woman in those days.

From 1952 to 1972 she and her husband owned and operated Morrow and Morrow, a life- and general- insurance agency in Malverne. Morrow ran the agency from home, enabling her to be a full-time mother. You might say she anticipated by half a century so many “telecommuting” mothers who today manage to juggle work and family responsibilities by working from home. When she and her husband merged their agency with the larger Meredith Agency in Valley Stream, Morrow became secretary to the agency’s president, the late Leo Lamm. She worked full-time until she was past 70, and at various part-time jobs until she was 83.

No “couch potato,” Morrow has found in retirement simply more time for her volunteer efforts. She’s a true hometown girl, having never lived more than a few miles from Lynbrook, where she was born. She has spent six of her nine decades of life in Malverne, a community she is proud to call home. Morrow remains the epitome of the small-town values and spirit of volunteerism characteristic of Malverne and the unassuming, civic-minded generosity of the “Greatest Generation.” Still a stunningly attractive woman with a radiant smile, Morrow’s true beauty comes from within.