The Story of Kristy, As Told by Dirk

HER FAMILY

Kristy was born Kristyanne Beenfeldt on January 11th, 1950 in Glendale, CA near LA. When she was 7, her family moved to Chatham, NJ, where she spent the rest of her childhood. As a child, she was called Kitty by her family, and Kit as an adult, but her husband, friends and co-workers have always known her as Kirsty. Her father Earl worked for Dutchboy paint and her mother Barbara was a homemaker extraordinaire. She had an older brother Eric who taught Electrical Engineering at the University of Maine. In 1996, her parents moved to Oregon to be closer to her, and in 2009, both in their late 80's they passed away. Her brother died of cancer at 65 in 2010.

Kristy had a personal goal of convincing her entire family to move to Oregon and she almost succeeded. Besides her parents, her niece Megan came to visit in 1994 and never left. Lured by the local music scene and the milder winters, she made Portland her home, where she now teaches violin and works with her husband Mark who writes and records film soundtracks. They have a 8 year old son named Max who was one of Kristy's biggest fans.

Kristy's nephew Dan moved to the Seattle area in 1998, which was close enough to Oregon that she still considered it a success. He has designed video games for various companies and was employed by Microsoft, working in gaming and security before starting his own company. He and his wife Nanae have two boys, Ren, who is 18 months, and Kai, who was just born.

HER PASSIONS

Kristy loved animals of all kinds. She had many pet dogs, cats, birds, fish, and horses. Most of all she loved horses. As a kid she had many animal toys and figurines made of rubber, plastic, ceramic, metal, and glass. You name it she had it. She would spend much of her free time making farms with toy animals and I know what her imagination created---her farm in Amity. She was riding horses before her teens and has done so all her life.

Kristy was a member and donated to the following wildlife and pet charities: The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA); People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA); The National Wildlife Federation; The Nature Conservancy; and The Humane Society. I have continued membership in these organizations for her. She was an active member in the Chehalem Mountain Chapter of the Oregon Dressage Society.

KRISTY'S EDUCATION

Kristy received a B.A in English from Northwestern University and B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Oregon State University. Later she received a B.S. in Statistics at Portland State University while working full-time at OHSU. She almost obtained her M.S. in Statistics but left school to care for her elderly parents.

A PREVIOUS MARRIAGE

Kristy's first husband was Michael Sprinker. She met him at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Michael was an English major who went on to obtain a PhD in English. He eventually taught at Princeton as was respected by his students and colleagues. They married in her early twenties and they divorced when she was in her late thirties. Michael may have never realized what he lost. His loss was my gain.

HOW WE GOT TOGETHER

We started dating on her birthday in 1992. I asked her out but did not know it was predetermined. Kristy was originally in the ED as a Registrar, kept finding excuses to stop by the closet called the ECC in the old ED next to Hospital North. That building was torn down for the Biomedical Research Building (BRB). She would bring the Admitting office recycling down and dump it in a big container in the ECC. As it turned out, recycling was instrumental in our being together. Kristy told me much later she would go to other areas in the ED to bring me more recycling. She liked me. Although I asked her out first, she was the one doing the hunting. I thought for years it was my idea to date her until she explained reality to me.

On our first date I took her cross country skiing around Trillium Lake on Mt. Hood and afterward we had dinner and a movie at The Baghdad Theater on Hawthorne in Portland. I thought she would be too tired to go out for dinner and a movie after an entire afternoon skiing but she was all for it. It was the first of many surprises. No way would she let me think she wasn’t as strong as me. As it turned out she was stronger and smarter. She would later become the oldest member at McMinnville CrossFit and was teasing me to join up too. After realizing I was in love with an Amazon, I’m not sure why she married me. I can only assume her love of animals included me. This was confirmed by Barbara Boyer our hay provider for the horses. A few days after Kristy’s passing, Barbara and her husband Tom stopped by. She said she was checking on the animals and asked how I was doing.

ABOUT OUR MARRIAGE(s)

We married March 19th 1999 in the Salem Courthouse. We each had previous marriages with ornate ceremonies, expense, and lots of people. To Kristy and I those past weddings seem more for the attendees than for us. Feeling that way, we got married by a judge with only Kristy’s parents Barb and Earl as witnesses.

We had actually taken our honeymoon starting on Halloween in 1998 with a week long trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. We planned to marry there. As it turned out we had too much fun site-seeing and going to the various events in our tour package. When we got back we told everyone we got married in Mexico. Why? We had told our friends, family, and coworkers were going to be married in Mexico! We didn’t want to disappoint them so we fibbed and did it for real the following March.

HOW WE FOUND OUR HOME

We bought our home in Amity Christmas Eve 1999 and moved in the first week of February, 2000. We started looking for a place not long after formalizing our seven year relationship. We had many days searching online (with dial-up internet) and traveling in bigger and bigger circles around Portland looking for a place we could afford. Kristy had acquired two horses, thus acreage meant going far afield for that combination of a home for us, Darcey, and Flicka. After many miles and many directions we found our place in the Amity Hills of Yamhill County. Years of work and expense turned a place covered in blackberries, poison oak, weeds, and logging slash into our paradise. We planted all kinds of trees, shrubs, flowers, and local flora to restore the land. We made a home for us, our pets, and the wildlife. Darcey and Flicka got a new barn, pasture, and exercise arena. Now her horses are with her good friend Betty in South Dakota, an equestrian like Kristy. Our new place was a refuge from our hectic work in the Emergency Communication Center. The hour and a half commute inspired a name for our home--- Faraway Farm.

WHERE SHE IS NOW

Her parent’s ashes were spread in the pasture of Faraway Farm. Kristy’s ashes will be in the pasture with them too, but the ashes are not Kristy. They are just minerals and have less importance than our memory of her. She lives on in all of our memories. Her spirit may feel far away, yet she is still with us, living forever in our hearts.