Elayne Louise Lansford

1955 - 2024

BORN

1955

DIED

2024

About

University of Michigan University of Texas

Elayne Lansford Obituary

Dr. Elayne Lansford, PhD., 68, of Austin, Texas passed away peacefully of metastatic breast cancer on September 16, 2024. She was born on October 5, 1955, in Austin, Texas, to Myra Winfield and Ed Lansford, both chemists. She was raised with her two brothers Dan and Ralph on an old cotton farm because her mother had read Thoreau and wished to create Walden Pond in Texas. This led to Elayne having a lifelong love of nature and stewardship of land, shared with her brothers.

She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1976 and received her PhD from the University of Michigan in 1982 where she met her wonderful New York husband, John Villanacci. After receiving her degree, she did a two-year post-doctoral fellowship at the Health Science Center at San Antonio. She then returned to Austin where she and John started their careers and their family together, raising two fine sons, Anthony and Joseph Villanacci. Together, she and John faced the vicissitudes of life with as much courage as they could muster, including a 20-year battle with cancer for Elayne and pulmonary fibrosis resulting in a bilateral lung transplant for John.

Elayne adored her sons and saw them as the greatest gifts in her life. She also was deeply committed to her profession and her clients and worked up until a few months before passing. She worked in the mental health profession for 49-years, teaching and mentoring new clinicians whenever she could, and caring for her clients in the best way she knew. She believed that her purpose in life was represented by the concept of Tikkun Olam, a Hebrew phrase that means repairing a broken world. Though she was a Jew, she did Buddhist meditation for 25 years and found much value in Buddhist thought.

Avocationally, she was a passionate gardener and grower of plants, many of which she gave to others, to add to the beauty of the world. She learned art welding and mosaic work to augment her gardens, especially the area called the bottle world, which was a sea of glass, bottle trees, found metal objects, and wildflowers. If you would like to see the bottle world and her garden, Central Texas Gardener has two videos of her garden online (see links below).

https://youtu.be/IGH952cn6gk?si=BDUxpUK4VxLa_L0i.

https://youtu.be/IGH952cn6gk?si=eZ3WMcavTMoOrRjv.

She had the most wonderful friends one could possibly find in this world, and was so very grateful to them. She is survived by her husband, her two sons, her brothers and a number of nieces and nephews. She hated to leave so soon, but that was what fate decreed. She will be deeply missed by all who knew and loved her. For those interested in making a donation in Elayne's name, her favorite charity was Heifer International, an organization working to end hunger and poverty around the world.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by Austin American-Statesman from Sep. 20 to Sep. 23, 2024.

Memories and Condolences
for Elayne Lansford

3 Entries

Alma Gonzalez

September 21, 2024

It is with a heavy heart that I am writing this message. I learned so very much from Dr. Lansford that I don't even know how to begin. Elayne Lansford Ph.D. helped me learn perseverance and courage. Elayne Lansford was a Beacon of Hope and a Harbor of Safety where myself and everyone else who came to her would be accepted. I always left her location with a handshake and a smile. One of my fondest memory of Dr. Lansford was going to her fish pond full of gold fish and feeding them. Every single time I met with Dr. Lansford...I was met with a beautiful welcoming smile. Elayne Lansford's Spirit was immense and having known her for 23years+ was a privilege and a honor for me. Elayne Lansford Ph.D. is in my heart forever. Shiva.

Emily Romano

October 1, 2024

She will shatter.
She will break.
She will disintegrate
pieces of dust, clay and cloud.
Some say she lives in the petals of flowers, that bees carry her fragrance in their hairs.
I say she is the wonder of a waterpool's reflection, dancing in a Texas midnight, moonlit sky.
I saw that people were her gardens on the earth, I felt her shower us with care.
We look to the grass that clasps the sky, the rising sun.
We feel those curling, morning vines, the tender blossoms that she touched, the drops from the watering cans that fall back to us from infinity.
What was it that called her to listen?
To sip in all that suffering?
How did she snuggle in so perfect?
How many times did she bestow the gift of rest,
a shift in the joints rubbed raw with a hate we thought we could not escape?
The places we all ran from, she ran straight into,
into the thunder, into the hail thumping on hearts.
She rode into the dustbowls, straight into our thirst for relief and rain.
Is it any wonder that she feared to stop the care she was so great at raining down?
(like cherry blossoms in a spring wind,
like confetti from the canons of a broken heart)
She will visit us in the hot summer wind.
She will remind us:
Our sweat and the tears drop down to feed that ground
that holds our paws and feet,
clasps in love the roots of all the little wildflowers
that she waited for each spring.
Elayne: I too feared your disintegration.
I too wish the world could count your kindness, carried in your arms like a perfect newborn.
What will we do without the certainty of your gaze upon the most plaintive portrait, the saddest symphony?
Can we reflect that courage in a looking glass, will we know how to step through when the time sighs right?
Nothing is enough to say what I want to say about Elayne.
Perhaps it is best to sit and spin the silence, with strangers finally known.
Perhaps, because she would have wanted it,
for once, I will not feel alone in silence and sadness.
For once, I promise, Elayne, I will try and be
your kind of brave.