Christine Diane Schuster

Christine Schuster was born in Kutztown Pennsylvania on July 29, 1967 to Allen and Kathleen Smith. She was raised with her younger sister Cindy in what could almost be described as a ‘Winnie the Pooh’ like setting in the Pennsylvania woods surrounded by Amish corn fields.

Christine surprised everyone as a young girl in high school when she decided to take a summer job at ‘Crystal Cave’ in Kutztown PA as a tour guide. For multiple summers she worked at the cave and was very proud of herself and her ability to give tours to groups big and small. By her final summer at the cave she had moved up to the position of head tour guide and was probably the cutest tour guide the cave has ever seen.

Although she loved her rural roots and always considered herself a hick at heart when Christine was ready for college and there was never any doubt that she was going to college she decided to pack her trunk and head to the big city. Christine had studied ballet and she wanted to continue to study dance while she pursued her first Bachelor’s degree in Biology. SUNY College at Purchase in Westchester New York gave her the ability to do just that. It was at college where she met her soulmate and they began a long life of adventures together. One winter break Christine and Michael hitch hiked to the Adirondack Mountains. This trip sparked their love of adventure and traveling together and they would make ever longer journeys further and further west seeing all the sites along the way and rarely ever staying in hotels but rather always camping. Christine was very proud of her and Michael’s hike down and across the Grand Canyon and up the North face. It was a four day journey that the two of them held so dear to their hearts.

During a summer while away at college Christine worked at the ‘New York Aquarium’ in Brooklyn New York. She spent the summer living at a friend’s house in Brooklyn and would travel on the subway from Brooklyn Heights to Cooney Island every day making multiple train transfers along the way. She was nervous at first to travel on the subway alone but after a short while she was commuting as if she had done it her entire life eating bagels for breakfast and Pizza for lunch. She would arrive early at the aquarium and enjoyed visiting with the Beluga whales and swore that after a time the whales came to expect her arrival in the morning and recognized her.

Another summer while away at college Christine worked in the White Mountains of New Hampshire where she assisted in trail maintenance. She would hike for many miles a day with a full pack. One time while out on the trail she assisted in the rescue of a large group of school kids who found themselves on Mt. Washington unprepared for a drastic change in the weather. During her time in the White Mountains she acquired a great deal of knowledge about back country camping and this knowledge would serve her well through the rest of her life and perhaps she was the cutest trail maintenance worker the White Mountains had ever seen.

While at college, Christine decided she wanted to pierce her nose. This was a time before it was so common to have piercings and she wasn’t even able to find a place that was willing to pierce her nose for her so she and what would become one of her longtime friends conspired to pierce Chris’s nose one night in their dorm room and with nothing more than a bottle of booze a few bong hits, a needle and a match book they managed to pierce her nose. Chris was proud of that and wore her ring for many years until she perceived it to be too trendy at which time she decided to stop wearing it and removed it, but she always had the small mark on her nose to remind her of it.

In 1989 Christine and Michael packed up their van, which Christine helped to carpet, walls floor and ceiling of course and moved out west. Their plan was to move straight to Alaska but as they moved further and further west, they realized Alaska was really far away and decided to stop and spend sometime in the Pacific North West. The enormous trees and rainy weather of the Willamette Valley suited them. Christine’s red curly hair always looked beautiful in the drizzly rain.

Once settled in Oregon, Christine did what she had to do to find work. She was hired at ‘Dunkin Donuts’ in Gresham where she worked the graveyard shift serving customers, wiping counters and decorating donuts, but Christine was always looking to be the best at what she did and very quickly she insisted on being allowed to help bake the donuts. The men working at the donut shop at the time couldn’t understand why this cute little red haired girl wanted so badly to make donuts. They were sure that she couldn’t even lift the industrial sized mixing bowls, to which she said “Bullsh*t”. All through her life if Christine did a job, she wanted to master every aspect of that job.

After her brief stint at the Donut Shop she landed a job that would change her career trajectory for many years to follow. She was hired on as kennel help at what was then known as ’12 Mile Veterinary Clinic’ on Stark Street in Gresham. There she made many friends for life and her drive to learn about all things related to veterinary medicine was immediately evident and she voraciously absorbed all the duties of being a Veterinary technician. This time also solidified her intense love of dogs (and cats a little). When Christine insisted on saving the life of a young Cocker Spaniel that came in to the clinic to be euthanized due to a bad skin rash. Her bosses implemented a policy where if a suitable home could be found for a dog that was slated to be euthanized the clinic reserved the right to make an attempt to find the animal a home. Christine was so proud of her skills as a veterinary technician her ability to calm and comfort a frightened dog was legendary. She could be found sitting with the animals in their kennels during, before and after her shifts or during her lunch break. After her time at ‘12 Mile Vet’ she worked at was then known as ‘Northwest Veterinary Specialists’. She could place a catheter in almost any animal anywhere, anytime.

Christine took some time off as a veterinary technician and worked for a period of time studying the Hawaiian (Alala) Crow spending many hours a day in the jungles of Hawaii on the big island cataloging crow behavior. She thought it was the most amazing place she had ever been. She loved how when swimming in Hawaii the temperature of the water was the same temperature as the surrounding air.

Christine again took time off from the veterinary field and worked for the ‘Peregrine Fund’ outside the tiny town of Adel in south eastern Oregon as a “hack site attendant”. There she lived in a small trailer in the middle of the desert tending to fledgling Peregrine falcons, climbing up high into a hack site daily to feed the baby birds and monitor them. This was before the advent of mobile phones and the internet and she was very proud that she was able to live for such a long period of time alone in the desert with no one but herself to rely on. She had a close run in with a Rattle snake endured violent thunder and lightning storms in her small tent when she feared the trailer she was living in might be struck by lightning.

While Christine and Michael cherished their time together as a couple, they both knew that they wanted to experience the rewards of parenting. When they found out they had fertility problems, Christine spared no time in investigating options for adoption. Shortly after, they adopted an 8 month old bouncing baby boy and less than two years after their first adoption, they received a call from their adoption worker letting them know that the boy’s birth mom had another child and that child also needed a home and so their family was complete and so started a new chapter in Christine’s life.

Christine took on motherhood with such ferocity, advocating for her two young boys and protecting her boys like a mother bear protecting her cubs except the mother bear would not be quite as fierce as Christine. She took the responsibility of motherhood as seriously as every job she ever had through her life. She quit work outside the home and became the absolute best stay at home mom there ever was. She brought motherhood to entirely new level.

Christine valued education so much and when she looked ahead to the time she would have once her boys were grown she wondered what career path may be available to her. She went back to school to earn a second bachelor’s degree, this time in accounting. Her thought was the physical demands of being a veterinary technician were better suited for her in her youth and she wanted a chance to earn a good living in the later part of her life. She achieved her goal of a second degree from ‘Eastern Oregon University’ receiving excellent grades all the while. She was proud to show her boys the importance of education and the hard work it took to earn a degree.

There was not a superficial or insincere bone in Christine’s body. She had a way with people that made them feel comfortable opening up and sharing their

feelings with her. She loved talking deeply with people. If you wanted to talk current event and politics, Christine was not your gal. She will be so missed by her friends and family and the small community of Boring, she made the people closest to her feel special.

Christine went into cardiac arrest while walking the family dog at ‘Meinig Park’ in Sandy. Efforts were made to save her life but her brain was deprived of oxygen for too long a period of time. In some ways it was the ideal way for Christine to pass, she was surrounded by beautiful large trees and she was doing what she loved most of all, walking a dog. Christine would joke from time to time that someday she would be reunited with all the dogs she knew and helped over her life and how wonderful it would be.

Christine is survived by her husband Michael, sons Steven and Joseph, her mother and father Allen P. Smith and Kathleen, her sister Cindy and spouse Michelle and her nephews Zack, Daniel and Adam.