Audrey Victoria Haring passed away peacefully from this life to eternal life on February 25, 2015 at the age of 85. She was born Audrey Victoria Lyth, the second of three children, on March 27, 1929 to Victoria Edman and Albin Lyth in Brooklyn, New York. She grew up in communities along the Hudson River where her father was a gardener for the wealthy in the Depression years. She had a wonderful childhood.
Audrey attended a Presbyterian church as a youth. The pastor took them to a rally where John Wyrtzen was the speaker. It was there that Audrey made the life changing and life defining decision to accept Jesus as her personal Savior and follow Him as His lifelong disciple.
Following high school graduation at the age of 16, she worked a year in New York City, and then attended Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota where her sister was a student.
It was there that she met Robert Burton Haring, a farm boy from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, just returning from serving in World War II. Bob was a seminary student at the school, studying to be a Baptist minister. He had made a list of the top women at school that he thought would make “good wife material”— Audrey was at the top and he never made it further down the list! Her father was concerned about the “older soldier” that had smitten her heart and asked them to wait a year before marriage. They honored his request and were married June 12, 1948 in Escanaba, Michigan.
They soon arrived as the pastoral couple in the Northern Minnesota town of Waskish. They made their home in the basement of the church for the summer. The following summer they ministered together at churches in Carp and Baudette, Minnesota.
Their daughter, Linda, was born there. A few years later, Audrey and Bob served a church in Reynolds, Minnesota (near Long Prairie) where Juanita and Carson were born. They then relocated to Daggett and Stephenson, Michigan, adding Melodee and Dawn to the family there. They also served churches in Manistique, Michigan; Marshfield, Wisconsin; Stratford, Iowa; and Hayes Center, Nebraska.
Audrey ministered as the pastor’s wife, mom to her children, Sunday school teacher, camp counselor, dean or co-dean of Bible camps, church pianist when needed, youth leader, women’s ministry leader, and church secretary. She also was trained and led the “Philosophy of Christian Womanhood” classes in Marshfield and the surrounding areas in Wisconsin when they lived there. She loved people and served them well.
When Bob retired from the fulltime ministry in 1988, they moved directly to Grand Marais, Minnesota. They lived together in the Harbor View apartments until it was necessary, because of Alzheimer’s disease, to move Audrey into the North Shore Care Center in May 2006.
Before Audrey’s illness, she and Bob continued in their passion for motorcycle riding and camping until their 50th wedding anniversary. They loved to go back and visit the people from the churches that they had served in as well as visiting their families every summer. In the long winter months, Audrey loved to knit dolls for her grandchildren as well as enter them in the State Fairs. She won many blue ribbons.
Audrey was preceded in death by her parents and two siblings, Janet and Bob.
She is survived by her husband of 66 years, Rev. Robert Haring; her five children, Linda (Brian) Burck, Vancouver, Washington, Juanita (Dan) Kummer, Marshfield, Wisconsin, Carson (Robin) Haring, Cambria, Iowa, Melodee (Dan) Riddle, Grand Marais, and Dawn (James) Dossey, Grand Marais. She is further survived by her 20 grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren, two great-great-grandchildren, as well as numerous nieces and nephews.
Funeral services were held on Monday, March 2, 2015 at 2:00 p.m. at Cornerstone Community Church in Grand Marais and on Wednesday, March 4, 2015 at 11:00 a.m. at the Cambria Cemetery in Cambria, Iowa.
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