Christine Sheldon Howe

Christine Sheldon Howe born February 28th 1952, died at her home in Plains, of a heart attack due to her treatments for melanoma. She left us too soon, on Sunday April 28th.

Christine will be sorely missed for her musical voice, her infectious giggle, and warm gentle spirit, unwavering in her final days. Her creativity in her writing and in her home was a graceful harmony of profound eclecticism and a pure expression of her spirituality and a faith rooted in unconditional love.

Always surrounded by her unique books and art, she was one part mystic and one part academic

She held a bachelors in journalism from Chico State and wrote her masters thesis in archaeology on the medicinal use of plants by Native Americans.. She took great pleasure and pride from her archaeological studies with th US Forest Service. She recently wrote this:

Smoke from my dead dry bones

rises in the dawn

nearly alabaster now

my friends gathered in similar clothes...It is enough.

Alabaster stars glow... quietly we go

up with the stars.

one with our Host; a most Wonderful arise.

smoke of the earth: mist of the stars,

forever mingled says Rise, rise...

Maybe we’ll sing.maybe we’ll glow.

with the smoke of our fathers

of our Dead dry bones.

She is survived by her beloved sister Cheryl Ann Alianiello and brother Alan Goodman; Her nieces Taylour and Fallon Alianiello, Connie Marie Hogrefe, Sharon Renee Elliot, and her nephew Alan Lee Goodman.