Christine Blackburn

Christine Blackburn passed away on September 29, 2022. Her passing was as she would have wanted it, in her home, surrounded by loved ones, with dignity.

Christine was born the youngest of four children in Darlington, England to Annette and Thomas Clarke on February 6, 1940. Over the following eighty-two years she would live on nearly every continent, cross nearly every ocean, and settle, eventually, in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley.

Her first five years were spent in the midst of WWII, with vivid memories of her father going outside looking for bombers and of the family rushing to the cellar to take cover.

As Christine Clarke, her curious nature and zest for adventure had her falling through the roof of a school bus that she was dancing on, discovering an unspent bomb in her schoolyard, and moving to Brazil at the age of twenty-two as a nurse. Although she applied for other international positions, including one in Montana, it was through meeting her future husband, Ronald Carpenter, that her dreams of exploring the world were realized.

As the wife of a Foreign Service Officer, Christine Carpenter spent the next two decades surrounded by the diplomatic corps and attending events with prominent officials. Every one to three years she would pack up, herd her family to the next country, and meticulously decorate to make her new house a home. In every country she was quick to learn the language, to understand local ways, and to make friends, many of whom would last far into the future.

In 1996 Chris’s life turned full circle. One minute Chris and Ron were visiting a friend in Hamilton, MT. The next, she was packing up belongings for one final big move into a trailer, their first home in Montana. She would often tell people how it was “meant to be” after having applied for that nursing position in her 20s.

She would go to Yellowstone as often as possible, fell in love with moose, and loved watching the deer that came and went from her yards.

Here too, Chris was quick to make friends and join groups including a local choir, a hiking group, a Mah Jongg group and later a Scrabble group. And horses. She loved and rode as a child and here too she was once again able to ride, packing multi-day adventures through the mountains.

The slower pace in Montana, though sadly short lived together, suited them both. The birth of her grandchildren two weeks after Ron passed in 1999 gave Chris’s life new meaning. In time Chris met a gentleman by the name of Jim Blackburn who in 2005 became her husband. Their love and bond to each other was viscerally apparent in everything they enjoyed doing and everything they endured until the very end.

With Jim, her zest for exploring different lands was once again realized with several trips that they would talk enthusiastically about for years. Chris was entranced by a walk among grizzly bears on the Alaska Peninsula. She cherished a trip to Hudson Bay to see Polar bears. And her family in England would hardly believe that their “Chris” would be found mobile-homing it along the Oregon coast.

Chris will be remembered by many for her quick and easy smile, her deadpan sense of humor, her fierce competitiveness and for being a true “lady”. She was as comfortable setting a formal table at home as pulling a sandwich out of her backpack. And throughout her life she was rarely without at least one dog by her side.

Christine Blackburn is survived by her children Allison and Glenn Carpenter, grandchildren Michael and David Carpenter, her brother Brian, several nieces and nephews in the UK, a lifelong accumulation of friends, and her husband. To say that she will be missed is to do a great disservice to the depth of emotion felt by those who loved her.

A service to say farewell and celebrate her life will be held at 2:00 p.m. Saturday October 22 at Canyon View Church in Hamilton, MT. Please dress light and bright to celebrate the light that she brought to all of us. In lieu of flowers, please donate to Partners in Home Care, the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, or the National Parkinson’s Foundation.