Audrey Barron

Audrey Barron, a longtime resident of Greenwich and later Jupiter, Florida, died peacefully on March 26, 2017. Audrey was born on July 14, 1927, in the Dorchester section of Boston, the youngest of five children of Robert Lutz and Irene McCoy Lutz. She endured a childhood illness that nearly ended her life and kept her separated from her family, except for weekly visits, for a year. This experience, along with her naturally calm and gentle disposition, may explain the accomplishments of her life for which she will be best remembered: as a devoted, loyal and loving daughter, sister, wife, mother, aunt and grandmother who always placed the interests and welfare of those she loved before her own, and did so with such good cheer, so quietly and so effortlessly that it was rarely noticed.

Audrey married her girlhood sweetheart and lifelong love Patrick Francis Barron, in 1950, while Frank was attending Boston College on the G.I. Bill. Following his graduation, the couple embarked on a decade-long odyssey that uprooted them from the familiar environs of Boston and took them to Cleveland, then to Greenwich, then back to Cleveland, then back to Greenwich, with numerous local moves along the way and with an ever-growing family. Audrey, a natural mother and homemaker, bore the brunt of each move: finding a new house, packing belongings, settling her sons, and creating a new loving home, all of which she accomplished with humor, grace and quiet fortitude, as her husband's meteoric rise from salesman in a local Cleveland radio station to Co-Founder and President of Storer Television Sales in New York City ensured a secure future for her family. By 1961, the family had settled for good in Greenwich.

Audrey's life was guided by her steadfast Catholic faith. Hers was among the original families of St. Michael the Archangel Parish, where all six of her boys served as altar boys. Audrey was kind, playful and whole-hearted in her love for her boys, always conveying her unconditional love and protection while simultaneously instilling in them a sense of adventure, independence and ambition, as well as the responsibility to be a good person. Her high expectations for her sons were conveyed firmly, yet so unassumingly that they were perceived only in retrospect. All six sons are proud graduates of Fairfield Prep, Connecticut's Jesuit high school. On the occasion of Audrey and Frank's 50th Wedding Anniversary, their sons gratefully endowed a scholarship fund in their honor at the school.

In her youth, Audrey was proclaimed by some the most beautiful girl in Dorchester and she remained beautiful in every way to her final day. But her legacy is one of modest, self-effacing and unconditional love and kindness, of always putting others before herself. Her husband Patrick Francis and one of her six sons, Richard, predeceased her. She is survived by her sons and daughters-in-law, Francis and Eve Barron of Greenwich; Gregory and Sarah Barron of London, England; Robert and Jennifer Barron of La Jolla, California; William and Ketsara Barron of Hong Kong, China and Andrew and Kimberly Barron of La Canada, California. She is also survived by 11 grandchildren and by many nieces and nephews. She will be missed by all.

Audrey's family would like to extend their heartfelt and enduring gratitude to her caregivers at The Osborn in Rye, New York, who looked after her with skill, devotion and love for the last five years of her life as she endured the Alzheimer's disease to which she eventually succumbed.

Friends may call at Leo P. Gallagher and Son Funeral Home, 31 Arch Street, Greenwich, on Friday, April 7, 2017 from 4 to 8 p.m. A Mass of Christian Burial will take place at St. Michael's Church, 469 North Street in Greenwich on Saturday April 8, 2017 at 11 a.m., with burial beside her husband and son at St. Mary's Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Francis and Audrey Barron Scholarship Fund, Fairfield Prep, 1073 North Benson Road, Fairfield, CT 06824-5157. To leave an online condolence, please visit www.leopgallaghergreenwich.com