Ronald Christman

Ronald D. Christman August 21,1936-November 23, 2023

Ronald Dwaine Christman passed away on Thanksgiving morning at home in Los Alamos, NM as a result of complications from long term prostate cancer. He frequently said that every day was a blessing.

Ron is survived by his wife of 63 years, Corine (Elfrink) Christman, as well as his son Brent (Xia) and grand-daughter Jinyi Duan, daughter Marie Michnovicz (Matthew), and their children Randal and Elena.Ron was preceded in death by his parents Emil Christman (1911 - 1992) and Rosa Schlepp Christman (1913 - 2001).

Ron was born in Selby, SD and the doctor who came to the home to deliver him charged $35 for his service. Until he was five years old, Ron spoke only German so he could converse with his grandparents who were “Germans From Russia” immigrants.

Friends and family remember Ron as someone who never had an unkind word to say about anyone. He was a good listener, a planner and known for his sharp mind.

There were many things that Ron enjoyed but his family was at the top of the list. Hoping to see all three of his grandchildren graduate from high school, Ron attended the graduations of each and also got to see them graduate from college and begin their careers.

Ron enjoyed family camping trips and his children recall a few incidents getting the 4-wheel drive stuck in the mud while searching for ghost towns.

Ron savored his retirement years. In addition to overseas trips, he and Corine traveled extensively in their motor home, attended dixieland jazz festivals, and continued to ski, walk and bike.They led ballroom and latin dance at the senior center.

Ron and Corine were long time members of Marriage Encounter and felt that program had a positive impact on their marriage in addition to building long-term friendships.

Ron always felt that his marriage to Corine was ordained by a higher power. They met at South Dakota State University where Corine was introduced to Ron by her roommate who was from Ron’s hometown. After they had dated awhile, they discovered that their families had been friends for many years and had once had adjacent homesteads. In addition, these families lived in the same town in South Russia of Freuenthal before immigrating to the United States.

The United Church of Los Alamos has been Ron’s church home for 57 years. While Ron was chair of the Christian Education Board, he was pleased to initiate the approvals for a Montessori school to use the education building classrooms during the week.

Following college graduation Ron worked at Univac/Sperry Rand in St. Paul, MN where he developed computer hardware and software for military projects. During a16-month assignment to White Sands Missile Range, he fell in love with New Mexico.

In 1966 Ron and his family moved to Los Alamos, NM when he began work at Los Alamos National Laboratory and continued there for 27 years until his retirement. Ron enjoyed developing quality software for many networking and mass storage projects. These included the High Performance Storage System which received an R&D 100 award and the Common File System for the Lab’s new Cray 1 Supercomputer.

A memorial service will be held at 11:00 AM, on Thursday, December 7 at the United Church of Los Alamos with a reception to follow. We will celebrate his life the way Ron liked to end his letters, with Peace, Hope and Love