Mary Christine Krummenacher Willis

Mary Christine Krummenacher Willis of Riverside, California passed away unexpectedly on April 16, 2026. Chris was born on November 20th 1957 in St. Louis, Mo., to Nancy Parsons Best and H.L. Krummenacher. Chris's parents departed St. Louis for California in 1960. She was raised in Riverside and Corona, graduating from Marywood High School in Anaheim in 1976. After a year at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, Chris returned to Riverside to attend RCC.

Chris loved theater and gravitated toward acting, working on multiple productions at RCC as well as the Mission Inn Dinner Theater and Riverside Community Players. Her time there yielded lifelong friendships, and she continued to stay in touch with people she met there for the rest of her life.

She spent much of the mid-1980s living and working in Los Angeles, both as a pharmacy technician and in theater, before returning to Riverside. She married Theron Willis in 1991, and her son Chase was born later that year. Chris was a fiercely proud and loving mother. Her daughter Ellen was born in 1996, and her children became the main focus of her life.

Chris returned to school in the late 1990s and graduated with a B.A. in education from Cal State San Bernardino in 2001. She worked for many years at Riverside Poly High School as a substitute teacher. She loved her students and her fellow faculty, and took great joy watching her students graduate and enter the world. It was always a thrill for her to run into former students around town and hear what they were up to.

Chris is survived by her mother, Nancy Best, of Riverside, CA; her sister Lisa Dyer Terrio and her husband Roy Terrio, also of Riverside; her brother Victor Krummenacher of Portland, OR; her son Chase Willis and his wife Alicia Vaughn of Moreno Valley; and her daughter Ellen Willis of Davis, CA.

Chris was an enormous presence in her family and will be missed deeply.