Lisa Anne Frost was getting ready to board United Airlines Flight 175 at Logan International Airport, in Boston, on Sept. 11, 2001. But first, she called her father, who was working in Southern California.
“She was so excited about coming home after graduating from Boston University,” her father, Tom Frost, said in an interview last week. “She called from a pay phone and said she was boarding in 15 minutes and would be at (Los Angeles International Airport) to see her mother and me in a few hours.”
But that was not to be.
After takeoff, Lisa’s plane was hijacked by five members of Al Qaeda, who killed the pilot and co-pilot, and flew the plane into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York at 9:03 a.m.
The crash killed all 51 passengers, nine crew members and the five hijackers aboard the plane, as well as more than 600 people in the tower’s upper levels, and countless civilians and emergency personnel below.
Seventeen minutes earlier, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the WTC’s North Tower.
The younger Frost had called her father at 7:30 a.m. Boston time, which was 4:30 a.m. in Orange County, where he was working as a substation operator for Southern California Edison. The elder Frost remembered talking later to a woman who saw his daughter in that United line getting ready to board.
“The woman,” Frost recalled, “said Lisa had a great smile on her face and said, ‘This will be me in four hours at LAX.’
“I was working when I got a call about the attack,” Frost said. “I saw a plane crashing into the building. I didn’t know that my daughter was on that plane and had just seen her killed.”
Friday marks the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11, which killed 2,997 people — the deadliest attack on American soil. As happens every year, people nationwide, including around Southern California, will gather on Friday to commemorate the attack and to remember those who died.
The elder Frost, for his part, has been honoring his daughter publicly ever since that devastating day.
“I miss her more today than I did yesterday, and I will miss her more tomorrow than I did today,” he said. “I honor her every day, and that includes all of the other innocent lives lost on that day.”
Frost, in fact, will be the keynote speaker during a commemoration at the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda on Friday. He will also speak to Clipped Wings, a philanthropic organization of former flight attendants, on Thursday, Sept. 10, at Laguna Woods Village, where he currently lives. And on Saturday, Sept. 12, there will be a food drive and walk at his daughter’s memorial tree at Lake Rancho Santa Margarita. The lakeside tree is surrounded by a wrought iron octagonal fence honoring the shape of the Pentagon, which was also attacked on Sept. 11.
Frost remembers his daughter for so many things. But one thing that stands out for him was her interest in his running in the Long Beach Marathon.
“When she was little, she watched me run in the marathon for the first time from her stroller,” he said. “She watched me run every year and did art work for the race.”
Frost was, and continues to be, a Legacy Runner, which means he has participated in every Long Beach Marathon since it started in 1982.
His most memorable Long Beach Marathon, Frost said, was Nov. 11, 2001 — just two months after losing his daughter.
“All of the Legacy runners wore shirts with Lisa’s picture on it,” he said.
“I remember at mile 21, another runner passed me,” he added. As he did, he told me, ‘I know who you are. I know what you’re doing, and it’s the most courageous thing I have ever seen. I’m running the last part of my race for your daughter.’ He and my Legacy brothers have my undying gratitude.”
One Legacy runner — Ken Williams — has worn his daughter’s shirt in every marathon since.
“Thanks, Ken,” Frost said to Williams. “You make this father proud.”
There was no way he was not going to run in the marathon two months after his daughter died, Frost said.
“I had to keep my marathon string alive,” he said. “I was never going to give the ones who did this the satisfaction of taking it from me.”
Frost has slowed down a little since he’s then.
“When my daughter passed, I was 48,” he said. “I’m 73 now and had a stroke 3.5 years ago. I’m running 5K races on the Saturday before the full marathon on Sunday, but I’m still honoring my daughter every time I run. She would not want me to quit.”
Frost called his daughter “amazing” for all she did in her life.
She graduated summa cum laude from Boston University, earning degrees from the School of Hospitality Administration and the College of Communications. She also graduated from Trabuco Hills High School and did community service in Orange County.
At the university, she was a leader on campus, including mentoring other students.
The student lounge at Boston University is named after her. The younger Frost was also inducted into the Scarlet Key Society, which recognizes students for their exceptional accomplishments in leadership and positive impact on others.
“You could call Lisa in the middle of the night,” one student told the elder Frost once, “and she would be there for you.”
The elder Frost said he has had his daughter’s remains cremated. She is in a crypt in the Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Orange next to her mother, who died in 2018.
One of his favorite mementos of his daughter, the elder Frost said, is a Christmas ornament made by the Nixon Library. It shows a photo of the younger Frost and the American flag, and under it is the title, “American Hero.” It also has the abbreviation, “CIV, UA 175,” for “Civilian, United Airlines 175.”
Appropriately, Lisa Frost’s birthday is near Christmas, on Dec. 21, 1978.
“She is a hero,” her father said. “I remember her every day. She is with me always. I am the proudest father who ever lived.”