Kristine Horne Alilunas Rodgers

Her parents were Wilma J. (nee Kleive) and Leo J. Alilunas. Her mother was a practicing draftsperson and artist, while her father was a professor of education at the State University of New York in Fredonia, where Kristine was raised through high school. She spent a year in Greece at age 17 with the American Field Service program. A love of Greek history, language and culture stayed with her. Her older brother is John K. (Jack) Alilunas of Post Falls, Idaho, with his wife Gae, their children: Amy and Peter, and grandsons: Caleb and Noah Bassi and Beckett Alilunas.

Kristine was educated at the University of Michigan with double majors in French and anthropology (1970) earning Alpha Lambda Delta Honors. Kris moved to France after college. She lived there for many years, where she married, Emile Berthon and divorced, and was awarded French citizenship and the prestigious Agregation license when she taught at the Sorbonne. Few non-native French speakers have attained that rank. Her students included the diplomatic corps in Paris, where she met the Australian trade representative, Colin R. S. Rodgers. They moved to the Australian Capitol of Canberra in year 1987, and there were married for many happy years. She was granted a third citizenship. She authored and edited books for the Australian National University, then operated her own business as editor in demand for academic and government publications. She has an extensive listing in Amazon Books. Colin was nominated to become Australia’s ambassador to Mexico but died by accident in 1992. Consequent to that loss, Kristine wrote and published for the Australian Capital Territory Magistrate Court a 200-page volume “Help in Coping, When Someone Dies…”, which is an international reference still used and in print today.

Kris came to Santa Fe in year 2000 to look after her parents. She was a caring and faithful daughter through their years, then stayed for love of the place, the people, the sky, light, air and the life. She served the community as president of the Santa Fe branch of the American Association of University Women, Architectural Committee member at DeVargas Heights, dancer at the International Folk Dance Society, activist instrumental in protecting Old Pecos Trail from high-rise development, convener of a Middle-Ages book group, and constant traveler to Europe and the Mediterranean in her role as a life-long student.

She flew to Canberra most winters to honor her ties to beloved stepchildren: Nicholas Rodgers and his wife, Donna, and to Phillippa and her husband, Daniel Gardiner, and to the cherished third generation of Aussies: Thomas, Francis, Thea, and Eloise and Ava. She is close to her extended family in the Lithuanian and Norwegian communities in Chicago and western Illinois, including cousins: Dan George, Mary Carlson, Julie Kleive; and to many fast friends from around the world, notably Laila Monahan, Ruth Halcomb, Ellen McKnight and Alison Nylund.

Her home is full of art and books, Greek artifacts, and is a powerhouse of intellectual research. At the toss of a hat, she would sing the Marseilles or dance a sirtaki or recite the order and reign of Plantagenet Kings. She was a regular at the weekly lectures at St. John’s College with alumnus Peter Balleau, her consort and travel companion of recent years.

She entered hospice only in the last few weeks of December, when her biology failed her, as pancreatic cancer must. Her hospice time ran quickly and peacefully with precious visitors. She will be interred beside her parents at Long Prairie Cemetery in Capron, Ill. She supported New Energy Economy (New Mexico) and the Pancreatic Action Network, where donations may be sent in her memory.

Let us reflect on how time and destiny push our wagons merrily, and sometimes mournfully, down a fateful track. She once wrote of another person that “There was no other in the past 6 billion years”, proving that what we say of others may apply to us. Kris’s favorite Greek philosophers claim that the good and the beautiful become immortal.