Ms. Eckroate was born Nov. 16, 1922, in Corpus Christi, Texas. She graduated from high school in Harlingen, Texas in 1940. She became an Alaska resident in 1970, after her husband's Air Force tours of duty in Fairbanks and Anchorage during the 1950s and 1960s. She attended Anchorage Community College. Audrey lived in Fairbanks from 1952 to 1954, Anchorage in 1961 to 1964, and from 1970 to 2004 she lived in Anchorage and the Anchor Point and Homer area.

Audrey worked as a bookkeeper in Anchorage in the early 1960's, a small business manager at a Homer laundromat from 1973 to 1982, and in the 1980s she and her husband developed Windsong Subdivision between Homer and Anchor Point. In the mid-1980s she retired from her bookkeeping position at Wagon Wheel Farm Supply Store in Homer.

Ms. Eckroate liked flower and vegetable gardening, canning, sewing, collecting videos, providing fresh eggs to neighbors, and loved family parties and special events.

Her family said, "She enjoyed the natural beauty and bounty of Alaska. At any age, she was youthful in her enjoyment of life and company of her family and friends. Her family will always remember her as a gracious, intelligent, and humorous woman, who exemplified dignity and integrity."

Audrey Eckroate is survived by her husband of 61 years, Ovid E. Eckroate; daughter and son-in-law Kathy June and Vince Fernandez of Anchorage; daughter and son-in-law Audrey Jill and Alan Latham of Mesa, Arizona; grandchildren Kimberly Wells, Matthew and Kristin Fernandez of Anchorage, Michael Larson of Los Angeles, and Jason Sewell and Brian Latham of Mesa, Arizona, and numerous nieces, nephews, and cousins in Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and Ohio.

Arrangements were made by Kehl's Forest Lawn Mortuary.