In Memory

Kristine Smith (McHenry)



 
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02/02/24 05:00 PM #1    

Cindy O'Neal (Keefer)

Kris and I were best friends back in the day.  As we bridged the awkward years between junior high and high school we shared the “thrills” of growing up, good and bad.  We were avid outdoorswomen in the Girl Scout tradition and learned in hands on experiences from camping and home arts to salesmanship and first aid (when a bus of boy scouts wrecked at a campout).  Kris excelled in the sciences, and especially bested me in mathematics.  Yet she was also incredibly creative musically and artistically.  We were in each other’s weddings.  She was incredible.  I think of her frequently with love and with sorrow.


02/03/24 09:57 PM #2    

Crew Heimer

Thanks Cindy.

Consider me an admirer of Kris.

When I last saw Kris, she was nursing a new baby.  By then I was wandering around the midwest playing trains in 12"=1' scale. 

We both grew up in Germantown and I had several years of elementary school with her - including a year with the wonderful Mr. Shrewsbury (6th grade) who set so many of us on a course of success in Math.  Meredith Olds was also in that class.  

At Gaithersburg Junior High, a number of the top math students had fathers who worked at the then AEC in Germantown, including Kris Smith.  Carter Atkinson was another.

In high school, we were on the Math team together and usually carpooled home after meets, alternating who drove.  I always enjoyed her company.    Which brings to mind one time my father provided me with his 60's pickup and mentioned that one cylinder was leaking, that he just had not had a chance to fix.  So we leave a meet in Bethesda in an old pickup spewing clouds of blue (oil-burning) smoke (especially when accelerating). Of course, down county they already considered us at Gaithersburg as being out in the sticks, and I did nothing to dispel the illusion that day!   


I thought Bob McHenry had a gift.  He was a rare person that would listen to one with full attention. I always felt gifted by the time he talked with me. I regret that he did not realize how gifted he was. I was off in Georgia when I heard Kris died. We all went our different ways, but I will always regret not staying in touch with Kris.


 


02/04/24 06:46 AM #3    

Pam Daniels (Hobson)

Oh my! Fun memories bubble up of being in French class together.  Kris had such a wonderful sense of humor.  She touched many lives.


02/26/24 11:52 AM #4    

Lynn Collins (Knazik)

Kris was one of my closest friends in high school. Comiserating with her over Mr. Palazzo's French class was one of the highlights of my day. Like Cindy, Kris and I shared many GIrl Scout adventures. Two of my favorite memories are of the annual end of school camping trips in Ocean City and our regular trips to Walter Reed to sing for the patients. Sharing in her wedding day is another wonderful memory.  I miss Kris immensely and mos particularly her kindness and gentle sense of humor.


02/27/24 09:39 AM #5    

Bill Smith

Although I didn't know Kris very well in high school since I transferred in during my junior year, I remember her from homeroom with all of us 'Smiths'.  I got to know her well at Virginia Tech.  The first time I took my wife-to-be out to Kris' house on Schaeffer Road, my wife-to-be asked me where we were going as we traveled out Clopper Road.  She thought we were lost!  (My family lived in Derwood - pre-Shady Grove extension.)  Kris and Bob lived in the same apartment complex our first year of marriage and Bob sang and played the guitar at our wedding.  As we started families we would get together a couple of times a year with other friends.  I would play golf with Bob frequently.  He always said that Kris was his rock.  As our kids' activities became more time consuming, we saw less of each other.  She was always so kind to everybody and supportive of everyone else.  She was kind enought to call me when Bob died, even though we hadn't seen each other for several years.  I think about her and Bob and recently tried to pick out her parents' house when I was driving past that area.  She was as beautiful a person on the outside as on the inside.


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