Daughter of Helen and Joe; wife to Greg; mother of Stephanie, Roberta, and Greg;
grandmother to Jenelle and Zachary; great-grandmother to Jasmyne, Jordan, and Anya; Audry
Louise Lynch passed away on January 15, 2025 after a life fully lived.
Audry was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, graduating from Harvard University's
sister college, Radcliffe, but spent the majority of her life in Saratoga, California. She lived her
life by one firm motto: She wanted to go everywhere and she wanted to do everything. There
were very few places on the globe that did not give her a passport stamp. Audry filled her
house with unique objects from around the world.
Her second great love, after her husband Greg, had to be John Steinbeck. Her move to
California in 1970 put her in close proximity to the locations made famous in the works of her
literary hero. Countless were the trips the family would take from Saratoga down to Steinbeck
country. If she wasn't talking about Steinbeck, she was writing about Steinbeck or giving
lectures about Steinbeck or giving tours through Steinbeck country. She amassed probably the
largest personal collection of Steinbeck books and memorabilia on the West Coast.
Passed down from her father was a devotion to education. Audry spent over forty years as a
guidance counselor in San Jose, ending her career at Bernal Middle School. In her spare time,
she taught writing courses at the local community colleges. Students from those classes still
contact her around the holidays to talk about the impact she had on their lives.
She didn't just teach writing but also was a writer herself. She got her start as a writer for the
Woburn Times in Massachusetts and was constantly producing articles on a range of subjects.
Her fist book was about a parish priest and his struggles in one of the poorest sections of
Limerick, Ireland. Audry, of course, wrote about Steinbeck in numerous formats but the apex
was probably her detailing Steinbeck's exploits while he himself was writing his book the Sea
of Cortez.
Audry's end came peacefully. She spent the Christmas holidays visiting with her far flung family
as they traveled home for what would turn out to be one last Christmas get together. Once the
excitement of the visits was over, it seemed that Audry decided her journey here was done and
left us to be back with the first love of her life, her high school sweetheart, Greg