AFTERGLOW
I’d like the memory of me to be a happy one.
I’d like to leave an afterglow of smiles when life is done.
I’d like to leave an echo whispering softly down the way.
Of happy times and laughing times and bright sunny days.
I’d like the tears of those who grieve to dry before the sun.
Thinking of happy memories that I leave as my life is done.
Audrey Ann Hull, 91, a Navy wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother passed away in Pensacola, Florida, on Nov. 15, 2021, following a lengthy illness. However, she exceeded her goal to at least reach the age of 90! Audrey was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Bertha and Louis Trlida, and grew up living in Enfield, Connecticut. In 1947, while on her senior class trip to Washington, D.C., she met her future husband, Sidney E Hull, Sr, at a Rexall Drug Store, after he’d arrived for a US Navy duty assignment. They subsequently married Christmas Day 1948. Audrey worked at the FBI for a period during J. Edgar Hoover’s leadership, often relating her pride in what she said was the best and most interesting job she ever had. At the time of Sid’s death in 2006, they had been married 57 years.
Audrey loved being a ‘Sailor’s’ wife, traveling with Sid to all of his duty stations, including Bethesda, Maryland; London, England; Naples, Italy (where an infant daughter, Karen Lou, was buried in 1952); Winter Harbor, Maine; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Adak, Alaska; Bremerhaven, Germany and, finally, to Pensacola, where Sid retired from the Navy after 21 years. Soon thereafter, he went to work for the National Security Agency (NSA) in Maryland, then to Harrogate, England for three years until returning to Maryland. Eventually, they retired in Pensacola.
Audrey was an avid reader, loved music, dancing, writing poetry and travel. She never met a stranger and maintained many lifelong friendships with countless old school friends from Connecticut as well as the new people she met during her travels or in the countries where she and Sid lived during their Navy years, genuinely cherishing all her friends and adventures! Throughout the past 74 years, Audrey’s best friend, confidant, her treasured ‘sister’ of the heart, Frances Backus, has been her greatest and dearest, trusted and deeply loved girlfriend from the time they also first met in Washington, D.C., during the same life-changing visit when Audrey and Sid met.
In addition to Frances, Audrey is survived by three children, Sidney E. Hull, Jr ‘Skip’, Lauryn Audrey Moncrief and Luanne Karen Collett as well as five wonderful grandchildren, including Taylor Garrett Hull, Basil E. Moncrief III, Daire Moncrief Vadney, Brooke Howard Lee and Courtney Howard Boedeker; and four much beloved great-grandsons who christened her ‘Gigi’, Landon, Cade Lee, Tristan and Gavin Boedeker!
A Remembrance Service was held at Faith Chapel Funeral Home on Nov. 30, 2021 at 9:30 a.m., followed by interment at Barrancas National Cemetery, Pensacola at 11 a.m. If you wish to make a donation in honor of Audrey’s memory, please direct them to: NCVA Scholarship Fund, US Naval Cryptologic Veteran’s Association, P.O. Box 16009, Pensacola, Florida 32507-6009; or, at any time, a sponsorship donation to Wreaths Across America, on behalf of veteran’s who are buried at Barrancas (barrancaswreaths@gmail.com or 850-207-1217).
