Cover photo for Christie Lynn Black's Obituary
Christie Lynn Black Profile Photo
1953 Christie 2024

Christie Lynn Black

December 18, 1953 — December 6, 2024

Hailey

Christie Black, iconic athlete, gardener, mother, friend, and citizen of the world died peacefully Friday morning after an eight year battle with cancer. Friends and family where by her side…

Christie grew up the daughter of Vern Edmonds, a semi-pro baseball pitcher and grocery owner, and Rose Edmonds, an artist and stay at home mom who took her to softball games, snow skiing, and waterskiing on the local Minnesota lakes. Those genes morphed into the incredible athlete that Christie became. She had a beautiful golf swing, could lay it over one handed on a waterski rope, orchestrate the most beautiful powder turns, and drift along coral walls in her scuba gear all over the world. Anything she tried she mastered. She was quiet, private, and you didn’t hear much about her mastery because she was humble.

Rose gifted Christie with incredible creativity. Her first job was as a painter for an all girl painting company called No Holidays Painting. I met her in the old Golden Rule grocery where I was a carpenter and she was painting with her lifelong friend Marion Monge. We fell in love with each other immediately. As I developed into a self employed cabinetmaker Christie began finishing my pieces of furniture and we became a team. Back then everything was distressed in style and Christie, once again, was a master. Christie always loved gardening. Later in life she opened CB Designs, a custom garden design and maintenance business. Marion was the only person she could work with because her standards were a bit high. She maintained yearly contracts with about a dozen clients who adored her work ethic and were blown away by the quality of her work. There is a signature ‘Christie Garden’ that is unmatched. It took her three years to close down her business because her clients wouldn’t let her go.

Family was everything to Christie. The tragic pre-birth loss of a daughter devastated her and seemed to kill her dream of motherhood. Instead of wallowing in the mire Christie adopted two babies, Jamie and Chris. Jamie Grimes Hall lives in Boise with her husband Forest and there two daughters Dara and Isla. She has a successful career working for the trucking firm Mac/ Volvo dealership. Chris Grimes spends half the year in the Wood River Valley and the other half on The Big Island of Hawaii with his fiancé Stevie Tolman and her son Rowyn. They are the owners of Grimey Window Cleaning and Gem State Stump Grinding. Christie did a beautiful job raising her children to be the successful, responsible, loving adults that they are. 

Christie is survived by her older brother Ron Edmonds of Lincoln City Oregon. Ron is married to Penny and he and his son Sean run a small old school fish market called Barnacle Bills on the coast highway. Christie’s beloved younger sister Vicki Mattson used to cut hair in Ketchum before her and her husband Mark retired to a cute bungalow in the North End of Boise. Christie and Vicki are very tight and have been looking after each other for years. Christie’s youngest sister Sandy Kaloogian lives in Rancho Mirage California with her husband Harold and there two children Meredith and Jack.

My name is Tim Black and I have been Christie’s soulmate and adventure partner for 35 years. In our early marriage we love to sail. We bareboat chartered, with and without the kids, all through the Caribbean, Tahiti, and the Tonga islands where we swam with the humpback whales. Loving the oceans, we took up scuba diving and dove the Caymans, Solomon’s, all through Indonesia and New Guinea. Christie and her best pal Marion left me at home to work while they dove with schools of hammerhead sharks in the Cocos Islands 300 miles o the coast of Costa Rica. Loving the boating life, we spent 12 years on and o our boats Seafox and Tiderunner cruising up and down the inside passage of the Pacic Northwest. In the past five years, having seen enough pigmy seahorses and manta rays and eating rice and beans in third world counties we decided to focus on culture and history in our travels. That took us to four adventures driving through Spain, France, and Italy. Throughout this duration we loved skiing, hiking, camping and biking the Idaho wilderness.

Everyone in this tale mourns the loss of our dear Christie. She was a life force and an incredibly loving person. She lived and loved deeply and we will miss her so much. Our mission now is to celebrate a life well lived and our chance to be part of that adventure. Travel On Christie…There will be a celebration of life in Christie’s Garden when the flowers bloom late spring or early summer. Donations in Christie’s name can be given to The Liberty Theatre Company, The Hospice Of The Wood River Valley or The Nature Conservancy.


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