Margarette June Cline

M. June Christensen Cline, 81, passed away at the Kansas Christian Home in Newton, KS on July 12, 2017. She was born on June 2, 1936 in Walla Walla, WA, to Lawrence C. and Edna E. (Mason) Christensen. She grew up in Walla Walla, attending the Thomas School as a child, and later graduating from Walla Walla High School in the Class of 1953.

June would receive her Bachelor of Science degree in nursing from the University of Oregon Health Sciences Center in Portland, OR in 1958, which took her to the Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, IL for a year before returning to Walla Walla to serve as a Public Health and School Nurse for seven years, often spending her spare time working with junior high youth and in community outreach.
In 1966, she decided to pursue a new career and chose to enter The Graduate Seminary of Phillips University in Enid, OK, where she would graduate in 1969 with her Masters of Religious Education, working both as an emergency room nurse and as a Sunday school teacher in Enid throughout, and even helping to start a pastoral counseling center in the area. She was ordained into the Christian ministry in 1972.

Upon graduation, she would take a position as Associate Regional Minister of the Christian Church in Pennsylvania for over five years, assisting in programming and even editing their regional paper, before moving to Missouri and becoming the Associate regional Minister of the Christian Church of Mid-America, further serving for four and a half years.
Forever interested in further education and learning, June would enroll and complete numerous units in the Basic and Advanced Clinical Pastoral Education program at the University of Missouri Health Sciences Center in 1981, further working there as a Chaplain-Counselor, and later as Interim Senior Minister of the First Christian Church in Jefferson City, MO.

June would return to Walla Walla after a little over a year in Missouri, and married Loren Cline, whom she had met in her travels, in June of 1984 at her home church in Walla Walla. After their nuptials, she returned to Jacksonville, IL with Loren to start their lives together. She would become a pastor at the First Christian Church in White Hall, IL for thirteen years, before both she and Loren chose to retire and take up active lives serving on various boards, participating in councils, clubs, and mentoring in their spare time.

The Clines would move to Newton, KS, in 2000, continuing their community and charitable works, June serving where needed as an Interim Regional Minister. They would choose to scale back their involvements after 2002, but still remaining as dedicated members of their local congregation, volunteering, sharing, and lending a helping hand to all in need, as well as making contributions to the further educations of three generations of their now abundant family trees. Loren would pass away in 2010, and June remained in Newton until her death, a consistent and cherished figure in her community until the end. She will be dearly missed by all.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Loren; her parents, Lawrence and Edna Christensen; her brother, Lawrence Albert “Bud” Christensen and his wife, Nadine “Nick” Christensen.

She is survived by her sister, Maita Hagedorn of Walla Walla; and a great number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Cline families, and dozens of nieces, nephews, and great-nieces and nephews of the Christensen families, keeping in contact with all throughout.

Funeral Services will be held at 10:00AM on Saturday, July 29, 2017 at the Herring Groseclose Funeral Home with Rev. Steve Morris, officiating. Interment will follow at the Mountain View Cemetery. Memorial Contributions may be made to the charity of the donor’s choice through the Herring Groseclose Funeral Home, 315 W. Alder St., Walla Walla, WA 99362.