Audrey Joyce Neufeldt

NEUFELDT AUDREY J.

September 11, 1935 - October 6, 2024

Audrey Joyce Neufeldt (nee Beaumont) passed away peacefully on October 6, 2024, at age 89, with her husband of 66 years at her bed side.

Audrey was born in Lyleton, Manitoba, but moved with her family to Victoria at age 3. She grew up in Esquimalt where she attended Lampson St. Elementary School, Esquimalt High School, and Victoria College. She completed a BA in Honours English at the University of British Columbia and an MA in English at the University of Washington. She met her husband, Victor Neufeldt, at UBC and they were married in Victoria August 16, 1958.

She is survived by her husband, Victor, her brother Ronald (Margaret), children Geoffrey, Keith (Susan), and Karin, grandchildren, Kaiya, Cole and Jennifer, and numerous cousins.

She began married life in Kitimat in 1958, where her husband was a High School English Teacher for 5 years and where her two sons were born, then moved with her husband to the University of Illinois while he completed a PhD in English. During their four years in Illinois she taught in the English Department as a Sessional Lecturer and gave birth to her daughter. She returned to Victoria when her husband accepted an appointment in the English Department at the University of Victoria in 1968. She taught in the English Department as a Sessional Instructor, then Senior Instructor from 1975 to 1995, retiring in 1996 with her husband after his year as Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University.

She and her husband loved to travel, After retirement they travelled widely in Canada, the USA, Europe (including Central Europe and Russia), South East Asia, and Africa.. They loved the Mediterranean and visited Italy, Greece and Turkey numerous times, but she regarded their two safaries in Kenya and Tanzania as the most memorable of all their trips. She also very much enjoyed their four one-year stints in Britain, one in Oxford, one in Cambridge and two in London, while her husband was was on Sabbatical Leave, doing research.

She was an excellent seamstress and quilter, an accomplished amateur photographer, an avid reader, and after retirement became an enthusiastic gardener, working with designers to re do the landscaping of much of their property. She was the family archivist and historian, but equally happy to be outdoors, enjoying the beauty of the natural world, while at the same time fulfilling the role pf wife and mother with equal care and energy. All in all, she enjoyed a full and rewarding life until sadly in her early eighties a combination of asthma and dementia gradually eroded her capabilities.

The family is grateful for the excellent care she received at Oakwood Manor (formerly Parkwood Court)). At her request there will be no service. An informal celebration of her life will be held at a later date. In lieu flowers, donations can be made to the BC Lung Association, the Alzheimer's Society of BC or to a charity of choice.