Christiana Park

Christiana Park February 18, 1961–January 4, 2009 Christiana Park passed away entirely too soon, on January 4, 2009, at the age of 47. She embraced and loved life more fully than most can imagine, but sometimes struggled with depression. She is survived by her spouse, John Thomas Markert, and four wonderful children: Erin Hayley Park Markert, Ryan Christy Park Markert, Sean Patrick Park Markert, and Gwen Deirdre Park Markert, all of Austin, Texas. She is also survived by her brothers, Robert Anthony Park and Frederick James Park of Carlsbad, California, her sister, Deirdre Morris of La Jolla, California, her uncles Herbert Park of Portland, Oregon and Robert Wentworth Christy of Hanover, New Hampshire, her aunt Cynthia Park of New York City; and many cousins, nieces, and nephews. Christiana Park was born February 18, 1961 in Palos Verdes, California to Sybil Ferriter Park and Robert Anders Park. She is the great-granddaughter of Robert Ezra Park, the founder of the Chicago School of Anthropology. She graduated from Chadwick School in 1979 and then attended the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Latin-American Studies in 1983. She co-managed the Mermaid Tavern Bookstore in Long Beach, California before entering the graduate program in International Relations at the University of Chicago in 1985, where she earned a Master's degree in 1987. Her thesis, Guerilla Warfare in Peru: from the 1960s to Sendero Luminoso, anticipated the importance of understanding terrorism in the modern world. While on leave at Cornell University to study the Andean language Quechua, she met her future spouse. They moved to California in 1987, where they lived in Encinitas, Solana Beach, and Cardiff-by-the-Sea. They married in 1988 and moved to Austin, Texas in 1990. They were ideally matched through their twenty years of marriage and were blessed with four wonderful children. She bore and raised them naturally and with unfettered honesty, as she would say: "the truth though it slay me." In Austin, Christiana contributed years of effort at the Political Asylum Project of Austin (PAPA), eventually serving on its board of directors. As her children grew in age and number, she donated more and more of her time to their schools, especially the All-Austin Cooperative Nursery School, Highland Park Elementary School, and Lee Elementary School. She was an active participant in the Friends Meeting of Austin. Christiana made friends everywhere she went, and was thrilled with all cultures. She was particularly warmed by African-American culture and rap music. She loved to travel. As a child, she lived for one year in Brussels, Belgium; later, she spent her high school year abroad in Nordhorn, Germany. As an adult, she made innumerable trips to Mexico and Canada and a dozen trips abroad, including a five-month stay in the Netherlands and Germany, and long or multiple visits to Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, France, and Peru. She spoke many languages and acted as interpreter for many. Christiana was an inspired and complex woman whose profound empathy with the oppressed of any circumstance was at the foundation of her personality. She was keenly compassionate and motivated by an acute disgust for injustice, however it might occur. She used her riotous sense of humor to highlight the obvious mortifications that all experience but many suppress, using the truth to shock and delight. Christiana's thirst for new knowledge and novel experiences had no bounds. She was keen on art and architecture. She was a great reader, often pouring through a stack of books each evening. Her children's education was always her first priority. She was an avid writer and chronicler of her life and times; she completed more than 80 volumes of journal entries. She was a lover of all animals, especially dogs. Christiana was a master storyteller, and made her friends laugh until they ached. Her genius extended to all topics, leaving us to wonder how anyone could have learned so much. Christiana was a brilliant woman, full of life, who will be heartbreakingly missed by all. Her spirit lives on through all she has touched. Visitation will be at the Weed-Corley-Fish Funeral Home, Friday, January 9 from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. A Memorial Meeting will be held at 1:00 pm on Saturday, January 10 at the Friends Meeting House of Austin at 3701 East Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, followed by a burial service at 3:00 p.m. at Austin Memorial Park, 2800 Hancock Drive. Friends and family are invited to share a potluck dinner back at the Meeting House after the burial.