Kristen was a bright, beautiful woman who made everyone’s head turn when she walked into a room. She grew up in Houston and graduated from St. John’s Preparatory School. She attended Colorado College and The University of Texas in Austin before dropping out to have her first child, but always intended to go back for a degree in social work.

She moved to Canada with her second husband, then to Tehran, Iran, where she worked for the Ford Motor Company importer for several years and where her last two children were born. They moved back to Texas before revolution hit Iran and she began an eight year stretch working as head secretary for the Department of Otorhinolaryngology at Baylor College of Medicine. Every year, she enjoyed welcoming incoming students and helping them settle in to the school.

When diagnosed with cancer in 1984, she made sure to sign the papers donating her body and organs to Baylor, then spent her final year loving her three young children and leaving them with enough memories to last their lifetimes.