Audrey Catherine Rountree

June 7, 1925 – August 18, 2023

Audrey Catherine Rountree, 98, of La Mesa and Orinda, California passed into the

Lord’s embrace on August 18, 2023 after a long life of loving, caring and giving to

all around her.

Audrey was born on June 7, 1925 to J.M. and Nettie Lemmon at home in Will’s

Point, Texas, a rural farming community just east of Dallas. Her mother died of

tuberculosis just before her 6th birthday, leaving Audrey and her sister, Evelyn 4, in

the care of her father, her extended family and the religious community. An

itinerant Pentecostal minister, who organized congregations and built churches in

Texas and Oklahoma, J.M. married Liberty Miller in 1938.

From this early foundation of family and faith, she found lifelong joy caring for

others, doing the simple background tasks that support and strengthen others.

Indeed, well into her 97th year, she was doing dishes, washing and folding clothes,

tending to flowers, writing letters of support, praying, and doing what tasks she

could to make the lives of others easier.

With the U.S. entry into World War II, Audrey moved to San Diego, California to

assist her Aunt Margaret Yelvington, who worked night shift in a defense plant,

care for her children while she attended San Diego High School. There Aunt

Margaret and Annette Rountree conspired to send her on a blind date with Ruben

Rene Rountree, a charming but mischievous sailor in the US Navy. Stunning both

of their families, they married about two months after meeting! They waited until

she turned 18, and eloped to Yuma, Arizona on June 9, 1943. Although opposites

in many ways, they deeply loved and were devoted over the course of their 57

years of marriage. Audrey and Ruben were blessed with four children, Carol, John,

Greg and Tim, all of whom agreed they had the “best parents”, and the “best

family.” John recalls that “our house was the place the neighborhood kids wanted

to play”: It was not unusual for their friends to remark, “I wish my Mom was like

your Mom.” It wasn’t that she did anything out of the ordinary, but simply that she

listened, cared, and made every child know that they were respected; if they

misbehaved, it was the behavior she abhorred, while still loving the person. No

one wanted to disappoint her.

Although she never obtained a formal degree, she had a life-long love of learning,

and education. Carol would often find Audrey reading Carol’s high school

textbooks, and recalls with appropriate shame that she expressed teen-age

annoyance. About 1963, with her children in school, Audrey enrolled part time in

San Diego State College majoring in education and music, balancing homemaking,

children’s activities and studying into the night. Life got in the way, and she was

never able to graduate. But, her love of people made her a gifted natural teacher.

Among other things, Audrey taught Sunday School, and was for a time Director of

Children’s Works at Oak Park Baptist Church, a Cub and Boy Scout leader, and

later, a vocal music teacher at The Music School in El Cajon until it closed circa

2007. In 2000, her teaching was the subject of an editorial in the San Diego

Union-Tribune entitled, Her Warmth Is Teacher’s Musical Gift. It describes her

well.

As a mother and grandmother, she was the moral center of the family, and a prayer

warrior. If anyone was falling on difficult time, she listened, prayed and advised.

She often said, “I love people” – she meant all people. And it was true: she loved

unconditionally, and as a result of such love and her faith, she touched lives deeply

and for the better.

Audrey is survived by her children, Carol Brophy and John Rountree, her sister

and brothers, Laberta Thomas, David Lemmon and Johnny Milton Lemmon, her

grandchildren, Louise Rountree, Greg Rountree, Sheri Soderlund, Sarah Rountree,

Dawn Doss, Christy Rountree, Heather Brophy, Melissa Hart and Tami Rountree,

18 great grandchildren, 2 great-great grandchildren, 18 nieces and nephews,

numerous cousins and their families, the many friends and loved ones whose lives

she graced.

On September 15th at 11: 00 am, services celebrating her life will be held at El

Cajon Mortuary Chapel, 684 S Mollison Ave, El Cajon, CA 92020 with a

reception following. She will be interred with her beloved Ruben at Fort Rosecrans

National Cemetery in a private service to be on September 18th at 11:30 am. In

lieu of flowers, please consider remembering Audrey by an act of love, such as,

doing some simple task to make someone’s life easier; spend time listening

without judgment to the concerns of another; or reconciling with someone

estranged from you. Let us honor her life by being a little kinder to one another.

Her warmth is teacher's musical gift

October 2, 2000

There's something about a little private school located off the

well-traveled paths of El Cajon. Audrey Rountree, one of about a dozen teachers at The Music School & Music Store, is it. Kids and grown-ups alike affectionately call her Miss Audrey. White-haired, soft-spoken and often bespectacled, Miss Audrey

possesses no music educator's formal credentials. But the countless hundreds who've brought their kids to her from as far away as the North County and beyond for the past quarter-century don't rightly care about formal papers when it comes to Miss Audrey.

All they need to know is that she's sung in church choirs and studied college-level voice and theory courses from here to Oklahoma and Texas, her native state. She has a voice like that of a songbird. She knows music.

And at 75 Miss Audrey holds the only credential that counts -- an advanced degree in right living -- and when she applies what she knows, the effect on young people is amazing.

They soar. "I just try to understand them and help them with whatever they may

need," Miss Audrey says. "I feel like that's part of my life. That's where I fit."

Her students, coming in ages, as they do, from 3 to 65 and older, sometimes need a sympathetic ear; maybe a firm word softly spoken; a strong guiding hand.

Whatever the need, she always seems to know. And she always seems

able to accommodate. "I put my daughter (she's 6) with another instructor closer to our home because we're so far away from El Cajon," says one longtime Rountree client. "The guy was very good; very professional. "But with him, my daughter was just another student. There was no extra personal attention. And in the end, my husband, my daughter and I agreed that (the new teacher) was no Miss Audrey."Her Warmth is Teacher's Musical Gift

The humble lady has endured much pain in her life, related to the extended illnesses of loved ones. Much of that hurt, too, has come in recent years. Her mother died when Miss Audrey was 6. Ten years ago, she lost Timothy, her youngest of four grown children.

Her father, John Marion Lemmon, died in January, four months before her beloved husband, Ruben, passed away on Easter. And that was only two years after the funeral of his brother. With a look of shame clear in her face, Miss Audrey readily admits that

when contemplating the losses, "sometimes it gets hard to continue on."

But old J. M. Lemmon, as he was affectionately known throughout the

Depression-era Southwest, was an itinerant preacher who built church

buildings and organized congregations of the Pentecostal Holiness

Church. He was a devout man, driven by a passion for life. And before he

finally did succumb at 94, he left his oldest of five kids with something

that never fails her. She connects with it every time she sees students like Alexandra Steele and her older sister, Samantha. Five years ago, their parents enrolled Samantha, then 6, with Miss Audrey, hoping to build her music appreciation and maybe her lacking

self-confidence. Today, she sings in her middle school's choral group and she doesn't

hesitate to speak before large crowds. Her parents insist that it's all due to the work of Miss Audrey and they've gladly added Alexandra, now 8, to the sage teacher's student list.

"What they gain through Miss Audrey -- the confidence and all -- transfers to most other things," says father, Michael Steele. "I wouldn't have taken my girls to anyone else."

Made aware of that, Miss Audrey now displays a renewed look of hope and declares: "I'll go on. I can't stop. I have too much to do."