Carolyn Gale Christie

Carolyn Gale Berry Pickens Christie, 88, of Casper, Wyoming, passed away peacefully on November 2, 2025, surrounded by loving family members. She had a very short fight with an aggressive and rare form of kidney cancer that quickly took her life and left her family to grieve the sudden loss.

Carolyn was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on February 24, 1937, the youngest of three children born to Robert Buell Berry and Margaret Augusta Gale. When she was a young girl, the family initially lived with Bob’s widowed mother, Margaret Hume Berry.

Bob was employed by Northern States Power as a right-of-way agent. He bought ten acres of property in what was then called South Sioux Falls, and he planned to build a new home for his family that was essentially a log cabin. Bob acquired the timbers for the home when the power company replaced the poles along their lines and had them milled into three-square-sided logs with the round side exposed to the outdoors.

Carolyn attended South Sioux Falls Elementary, and later graduated from Washington High School, and kept in touch with many of her classmates for the rest of her life.

While assigned to a retail private investigator job in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Joe Pickens met Carolyn. Joe said his boss kept calling him, asking when he was going to come back to Kansas City and Joe kept putting him off, "a couple more days..." They married on October 16, 1957, even though Joe knew he would be fired since the company only hired investigators who were single.

They lived in Joe’s hometown of Hot Springs, Arkansas for a while, then after their daughter Charlene was born, they moved back to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Carolyn's parents gave them space on the land next door to the Berry Patch house for their trailer home.

Joe got a job as a guard in the state penitentiary for about a year, and then became a Sioux Falls police officer, officially joining the department on March 30, 1961.

In December 1961, their son Scot was born. Joe and Carolyn divorced in November of 1967 but became good friends again later in life. Carolyn served as the president of the Fraternal Order of Police Auxiliary and was so well-respected that she was requested to continue in that role even after the divorce.

In the fall of 1967, Carolyn met Worth Christie in Sioux Falls, and after a whirlwind courtship, married on November 24 of that year. Two more children arrived in the next couple of years, Michael and Cathryn, and the family lived primarily in Sioux Falls and Omaha before moving to Houston, Texas in 1973. Wyoming called Worth back home in 1980, and Carolyn resided in Casper ever since then.

Carolyn worked for the US Postal Service in Houston and Casper and retired in October of 1994. She enjoyed visiting family in Texas, South Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin and Mississippi among other places, and she and Worth traveled to Ireland and Germany as well as other leisure travel destinations, like Branson, Missouri and especially Williamsburg, Virginia.

Later in her life, Carolyn attended classes at Casper College for several years and was very proud of her excellent grades.

In January of 2012, Carolyn finally reconnected with her first child, a daughter named Nia who was given up for adoption shortly after she was born. After 56 years of not knowing what had become of this baby, Carolyn was overjoyed at finally being able to get to know her daughter, as was the rest of the family.

Worth died in Casper on September 11, 2021. Carolyn spent as much time as possible with her great-grandchildren who lived in Casper, and attending social events with her daughter Cathie.

Carolyn was predeceased by her parents, Bob and Margaret Berry, her brother Judson Berry and her sister Suzanne Flanigan as well as her great-granddaughter Tempe. Left behind are her loving children Cathie Christie; Michael Christie and his wife Dena; Scot Pickens; Charlene Pickens Hall and her husband Jesse and Nia Maxwell and her husband Larry Hill; grandchildren Chenoa, Joshua, Matt, Zach, Zane, Addison, Nick, Robert, Connor, Jon, Jordan and Jared; great-grandchildren Alana, Kira, Nathaniel, Jaiden, Matthew, Meagan, Owen, Willow, Jackson, Natalya, RJ, Hudson, Jonathan Jr., Ezekiel, Everest and Zamora, who was born the day before Worth died, in a perfect example of the circle of life. In the newest generation, Carolyn had a great-great-grandson, Oliver and a great-great-granddaughter Lilah.

Carolyn's beloved pups Bunny and Chunk will miss her dearly. Carolyn’s warmth, resilience, and love for family will be cherished by all who knew her. Her friends are invited to join the family to celebrate her remarkable life at a memorial service on Friday, November 7, 2025, at the 1st Church of the Nazarene, 2020 South Jefferson Street at 1 pm.