William John Christie, II (1918-2011)

Denise's father, William John Christie, II, died peacefully this morning at about 5:15 Pacific time. He was 93 and had enjoyed life--at least until the last several days. Due primarily to the efforts of his younger daughter, Michele, and his son, William John Christie, III, he had maintained a good quality of life at home until his recent hospitalization.

Bill was a loving father to his three children and husband to Audrey (Paepke) who predeceased him in 1995. After 50 years of marriage they both looked good (above). He left eight grandchildren. Until the last few days he enjoyed watching any of his nine great-grandchildren play even though he couldn't remember whose kids they were. They range in age from almost 17 years to one born the last week during his hospitalization. He was a veteran of WWII and worked over 30 years for the Department of Defense Audit Agency in Germany and the US. His unit landed on the coast of France two days after D-Day. The next couple of days must have been horrific because he permanently erased them from his memory. Of the period he said, "All I know is that I must have done my job. I was 1st Sergeant of my unit when we landed and I was still 1st Sergeant two days latter. If I hadn't done my job, I wouldn't have still been 1st Sergeant." A celebration of his life will be scheduled in the coming weeks. When I first started researching my father-in-law's ancestry a couple of decades ago, his auditor's interest on correct detail came to the fore. He told me that if I found any CHRISTYs who spelled their name with a "y" I should ignore them because his family had always spelled the name CHRISTIE. A few weeks later I showed him a 1920 census record in which he debuted as 22 month old "William Cristy 1 10/12."  Bill looked at the record for a long minute. Then he looked at the record again and then looked at me and said, "I guess I should leave you alone because you obviously know more about what you are doing than I do." He kept to his word. He was always interested in my finds, but never again tried to direct my research efforts.