Audrey I. Lansdowne

A kingdom obituary -April 30, 1925 ~ July 28, 2025

This morning, we will put my grandmother, Audrey in the ground to lie next to her husband Horace who passed on 4 Feb 2000 at the age of 79. She lived to be 100 years old, a full century. Have you ever considered what that means? Audrey’s life was a full century testimony to faith in Jesus Christ, her quiet strength, and endearing heartfelt service to her LORD. Audrey’s life very much embodied that kind of kingdom dedication.

At the end of her high school career during World War II, she stepped up to support her country as a factory worker, aiding the war effort. Even as a young woman, Audrey showed the kind of courage, patriotism, and virtue that would define her entire life. On May 1, 1946, Audrey was united in marriage to my grandfather, Ellington Horace Lansdowne of Madison, WI — a man who had served as a Former Flight Instructor (FFI) in the US Army Air Corps and later, a private flight instructor and firefighter for the City of Madison.

People don’t really come in this kind of form anymore. It has been described as a lost generation.¹ She lived out the great depression eating ketchup sandwiches. Her father passed early in life, so she supported her family working in high school and graduating before her older sisters and likely built bombs in the war effort at the age of 17 because she believed in a country that gave her the freedom of faith to worship her God. Horace showed up in an airplane and said go buy a dress we are getting married tomorrow… and they did and then flew away to start a family… probably on the plane ride home in auto pilot (which would have been a rope tied to the Taylorcraft yoke!)

She and Horace went on to be part of the founding members of Westwood Christian Church where Horace was an elder for many years and Audrey wore many hats. It was at this children’s church that I met my good lifelong friend Keith N. Schoville who started teaching me Hebrew incantations at an early age. He earned a Ph.D from UW Madison and later became the chairman of the of Hebrew and Semitic studies department. Keith helped me get into Bible college at Moody Bible Institute and later was instrumental in getting me into the Ph.D program at UW Madison in the Semitic studies department. I have a lot of great memories of attending church every time we visited grandma and grandpa. Going to church while visiting them was never an option, people don’t really do that anymore and it is unfortunate in many ways. I am thankful for what that sort of endearment ended up crafting in my life.

My grandfather was an adventurer. He literally swept Audrey off her feet and created a great life. She raised babies according to the ways of the LORD, and he did what he could to provide moving them into a sizeable home, working as a Madison firefighter which would later provide a pension that would take care of Audrey (and in some sense my mother) for many years after he was no longer around. Horace (better known as EHL) was a great enthusiast of many things to include aviation, Ford Mustangs, VW Beetles, giant Cadillacs, a 63 corvette (if I remember right), and a pretty good firearms collection that was hidden in every nook and cranny of that old house. I was quite impacted by my younger years with Horace and Audrey. I believe if that old house is ever torn down the walls and floorboards will share some stories. I will always remember driving around the countryside with my father and grandfather from one gun store to another shopping for the rare addition to the collections. I remember the infatuation I had with an old luger that grandpa had and yesterday we (my boys and Rob ad his boys) went shooting with some old WWII classics and I was taken back to remember some of those days with EHL.

My Grandfather is also responsible for my shopping and trading addiction. At a young age he sat me down in next to him at his “aviation” desk, handed me a red marker and a trade-a-plane and said find the best one! For many years that became a great pastime, and I am pretty sure he actually went out and bought one of those planes I circled at one point! As a flight instructor, by the time I was 12 he had me in ground school on a Texas Instrument TI-99 4a (pretty sure the numbers are right but going from total memory) computer flight simulator. This later gave way to me being a near computer wiz before anyone else I knew had even seen a computer. A mere 10 years later (still in the DOS days and even before blackberries) I figured out how to get email into a very early version of what we now call smart phones. I remember EHL not being able to wrap his mind around the concept of the internet and email. EHL would go on to have a stroke that he should have died from but was never really the same after that and passed in 2000, the year before Krista and I married. Audrey spent many years caring for him in that state. Her strength once again showed tenacity.

Audrey was resilient. She moved in with my parents and my father built a new home in the woods of Wausau with a mother-in-law quarter in the basement that was all hers. She loved that place and so did my mother. After my father passed in 2006 at 58 years old that house had special meaning to both of them. But my mother and grandmother were strong and within a few years moved to Walworth in a near new home where they could be close to our family and specifically my boys. This was a missional move.

My children grew up playing songs for Mamaw and great grammy a couple times a week. They attended regular soccer games and were always there to root on the boys in whatever capacity that meant. Grandma always had a special smile for them that no one else ever seemed to get from her! It became one of our greatest joys in life watching the sweet interactions between them. By the time our Oldest, Ty got his license, I would regularly ask where he was to find out he was at Mamaw and Great Grammys just hanging out! I will always remember and cherish the hearts of my boys towards these widows.

One of the things I liked most about Audrey was that she wasn’t overly salvific, and to be clear I don’t say this as being a bad thing; but her entire life she was more committed to deeper discipleship than evangelism and I truly believe that was the heart of Jesus in the great commission. She desired more than just a saving knowledge of Christ, she desired for people to really experience who Jesus was; to know what it meant to leave everything on the beach and give Jesus your complete life. She lived out that message perhaps better than EHL did. It has been said that behind every great man is a greater woman of faith.

That life resiliency that I had come to love and respect so much never left Audrey. Even into her nineties her mind was sharp, and it showed in her love and fervor for things of the LORD. She was a picture of what has become ancient devotion. She watched gospel TV nearly all day long and quite literally had the Bible memorized even in her old age. Even in the last couple of years of her life when her mind and memory showed signs of age she insisted on watching her favorite church services and impressing on my boys the need and desire of her heart for them to walk with the LORD.

Although I may not have agreed with all of her John MacArthur like theology, her fervency of faith was impressive, and I welcomed it into our family. I have a near photographic memory of scripture. I remember verses that people have used that they have long forgotten. It is a gift that is deeply woven into my DNA likely from inception.

One of the last scriptures she recited to me that I remember clearly was Psalm 102:12 –But You, Lord, remain forever, and Your name remains to all generations. (Ok you invited a theologian to address the internment!)

In Hebrew, this is יְהֹוָה לְעוֹלָם, you might recognize it even if you don’t know much Hebrew. David uses the personal name of God, יְהֹוָה , not the word “Lord.” I think at some point Audrey discovered this. It was a very personal verse, not a title but the very NAME of God, YHWH. But the psalmist goes on to say your “name” remains forever. You have probably heard that traditional Jews that don’t pronounce God’s name and often use the term Ha-Shem as a spoken substitute for YHVH which means “the name” in English… but here that isn’t the word that is used for “name.” Instead, the Hebrew word zēker is used which I find strangely interesting. In Hebrew singular words often tell a plethora of things… this is a sort of remez, or retelling of many things in a simple word or statement, it was idiomatic. The word means, “think (about), meditate (upon), pay attention (to); remember, recollect; mention, declare, recite, proclaim, invoke, commemorate, accuse, confess.”²

I imagine if I could go back to that moment with Audrey many years ago when she shared this verse with my young boys that she knew what this verse embodied because she lived it. This verse is God’s declaration. It is the vocational calling and identity that we have in Him and Audrey lived that out and made it known impressing on me at an early age to live this way and later doing the same for my boys.

It’s not the letters YHVH that remain forever. It’s the remembrance of who He is. Heschel used to say, “to believe is to remember.”³

One more thing, did you ever notice that “remains to all generations” is in italics? What do you think that means? In Hebrew it reads: תֵּשֵב וְזִכְרְךָ לְדֹר וָדֹר׃ (Te-Shev Ve-Zikh-Re-Kha Le-Dor Va-Dor). You will notice the literary rhythmic pattern, the connecting genre of the wisdom and poetic texts.

Te-Shev is the verb “abide” – “You, YHVH, abide [remain].” But the verb yāšab is more controversial and therefore stumbles in translation, it sometimes is read as “dwell” but here I will challenge (and Robert Alter⁴ would agree) means “to be enthroned.” “You, YHVH, are forever enthroned.”

The NASB then translates “To all generations,” (the word “all” isn’t technically in the text.)

So here is the thing, the “name” of God, that is, His remembrance, depends on the generations of men or should I even say women. Today this has largely become lost. Do you see the implication?

The verse implies that we need someone to do the praising, remembering, and worshipping—someone alive! “If I die,” implies the psalmist, “Your glory will be diminished because I won’t be there to praise You.” The Psalmist sees their part in the covenant partnership and so did Audrey. She knew that she needed to live it out and insist on such a way of devotional living. You didn’t play cards in Grandmas house, and you better remember to pray before you eat. Are you following me? God’s faithfulness spans the generations for those that are devout. for Audrey it was YHWH, “You are worthy of all praise. Let me partner with that notion.” And that is what she prayed for her grandsons and for us. Today we honor her by doing just that.

I know that her children and grandchildren have taken on a wide range of faith and there is a great deal of diversity here. I ask today that we celebrate that. That we come together in honor of Audrey for what we are united in and find common. I believe that although Audrey would want to encourage you into her John MacArthur like religion and perhaps you already know that greater than I do, but she would also smile on any step that leaned towards Jesus. I invite you to come back to that place.

Would you join me one last time?

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed

When we’ve been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see