Kris Regelbrugge, the last Oso mudslide victim, lived on her own terms

OSO — Kris Regelbrugge was the missing woman.

For weeks, the 43rd and last of the Oso mudslide victims became the symbol of unfinished business, the rallying cry to press on.

To her family, she was so much more than the boilerplate sentence in follow-up news reports of the worst natural disaster in Snohomish County history.

She was the middle of three children, the high-octane girl who once picked her mom a bouquet of poison oak that left her hands and face severely swollen.

By the sixth grade, she dropped her given name of Molly and announced to her family that she would be “Kris,” a shortened version of her middle name.

Her parents say she lived life on her own terms.

Her future husband would learn that, too, on the day they met.

She turned down John Regelbrugge when he asked her to dance at a Black Angus steak house. She made him wait the entire night before taking him up on his offer.

They would prove a worthy match over the next quarter century: both had trouble sitting still.

An enlisted man who became an officer, Navy Cmdr. John Regelbrugge III completed 19 deployments before he died in the March 22 mudslide. Kris raised their children while he was at sea.

A week after the slide, her family already was missing her mischief. She’d been so adept at pulling pranks her parents and sister would mark their calendars and screen their calls each April Fools Day.

Kris had a tattoo of the sun on her big toe. That way she figured she could lift her foot each morning to watch the sun rise.

In 2007, the Regelbrugges moved into the Steelhead Haven neighborhood of Oso, enrolled their children in Darrington schools and quickly made friends across the Stillaguamish Valley.

“It was going to be their forever home,” said her mother, Lynn Holleran.

‘We love each other’

The rain fell hard on St. Patrick’s Day, one week before the hillside gave way.

Kris decorated her home and prepared the food. Three crock pots of corned beef bubbled on the kitchen counter. There was plenty of bangers and mash to go around. Folding chairs were upholstered in festive patterns. Guests wore goofy green derbies.

Her sister, Charlotte McCalister, came up from Kitsap County. Many of the Regelbrugge’s neighbors were there as well, bringing Irish soda bread and other dishes.

The revelers, more than two dozen adults and children, held hands and said grace, finishing with: “We love our bread, we love our butter, but most of all, we love each other.”

Photographs taken that night provide a glimpse into a remarkably tight-knit community that seven days later would be gone.

Kris’s dad, Dan Holleran, 70, visited Steelhead Haven many times. “If you were loading wood, you couldn’t be out there 30 seconds without someone helping you,” he said.

Kris watched the children grow up and move away. Kyle and Brian joined the Navy; Scott enlisted in the Army. Sara would become the senior class and student body president at Darrington High School before heading off to college.

Along the way, Kris opened her home to her children’s friends, some of whom needed a place to stay or a firm nudge in the right direction. One boy lived with the family for the better part of a year.

Day of chaos

McCalister received a message from Sara on the morning of the slide.

“Hey Auntie,” her niece asked, “Have you heard from Mom and Dad?”

That was the beginning of an agonizing four months. March 22 proved exceptionally cruel.

By 1 p.m., McCalister felt a knot tighten in her stomach.

She and her husband, John, drove north.

Bad information from the Internet and relief workers led them to believe Kris had been taken to a hospital in Mount Vernon. When they arrived, her sister wasn’t there.

By the time they reached Everett, they got another call that Kris was okay. They returned to Mount Vernon, only to again be turned away.

Sara went to her grandparents’ home in Port Ludlow in Jefferson County. They also received misinformation.

Someone called to report that both John and Kris were alive.

“We were all thanking God,” he said.

The phone rang again. There had been a mistake. The first caller had been reading off the missing list, not the roster of those who had been found.

“Everything was mass confusion,” Dan Holleran said. “We don’t hold a grudge.”

The family’s attention turned from hospitals to the debris field.

The mud surrendered John’s medals and ceremonial sword, the large saws that had hung on the wall over the wood stove and a school photo of Kris when she was young.

John Regelbrugge’s sons and brothers found him the first week.

Now, if they could only find Kris.

For a few days, it appeared they had with the discovery of a woman with a tattoo on her leg. The family provided a photo of Kris’s morning glory tattoo. Sara gave a DNA sample.

“The guys were exhausted,” McCalister recalled. “We were just wanting to find out it was Kris. We were going to have one funeral for them.”

It wasn’t Kris.

By the time of John Regelbrugge’s memorial at the Everett Navy base, some in the family were beginning to doubt that Kris would ever be found.

Seth Jefferds, a Steelhead Haven neighbor and captain with the Oso Fire Department, approached Dan Holleran at the service. He knew about loss. His wife and baby granddaughter died in the slide.

Jefferds told him: “I give you my solemn word we won’t quit looking.”

On April 28, Sheriff Ty Trenary announced the active search was being suspended. Only Kris and Steven Hadaway, a Darrington man who was installing a satellite dish at a Steelhead Haven home when the slide hit, were still out there.

An informal search continued. On May 22 came word that another body had been recovered.

“We prayed for him just as much as we prayed for Kris,” McCalister said.

The Hadaways did the same.

Steven Hadaway was the 42nd slide victim found.

Gratitude

After the slide, the American flag at the McCalister home was lowered to half staff.

They hung a yellow ribbon, just as they had when their nephew Scott was stationed in Afghanistan.

As spring turned to summer, McCalister decided she would return the flag to full staff in September.

She began to wonder if Kris would have wanted to be found. She imagined a vista with a marker along Highway 530 remembering her sister and considered planting hundreds of daffodil bulbs in the debris field in her honor.

Search-and-rescue crews and volunteers from the valley never stopped looking.

Kris was found July 22. She was 18 feet underground.

“It was almost disbelief to me,” Dan Holleran said. “It was like removing a thousand pounds from my shoulders.”

The family is thankful for the fact that Scott left the home in Oso the morning of the slide to work a shift at the Darrington mill.

They are grateful to countless people.

Early on, Dan Holleran volunteered at the Oso Fire Hall and saw the caravans of donations come through. The Navy lodged the family, provided chaplains and took care of the logistical minutiae. They appreciate all of those who prayed for Kris and especially the locals and loggers who searched for her, even when that meant defying authority.

It has been more than a month since Kris was found and five months since the slide. The family is planning her memorial.

Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

Ariel Garcia, 4, was last seen Wednesday morning in an apartment in the 4800 block of Vesper Dr. (Photo provided by Everett Police)
How to donate to the family of Ariel Garcia

Everett police believe the boy’s mother, Janet Garcia, stabbed him repeatedly and left his body in Pierce County.

A ribbon is cut during the Orange Line kick off event at the Lynnwood Transit Center on Saturday, March 30, 2024 in Lynnwood, Washington. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
‘A huge year for transit’: Swift Orange Line begins in Lynnwood

Elected officials, community members celebrate Snohomish County’s newest bus rapid transit line.

Bethany Teed, a certified peer counselor with Sunrise Services and experienced hairstylist, cuts the hair of Eli LeFevre during a resource fair at the Carnegie Resource Center on Wednesday, March 6, 2024, in downtown Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Carnegie center is a one-stop shop for housing, work, health — and hope

The resource center in downtown Everett connects people to more than 50 social service programs.

Everett mall renderings from Brixton Capital. (Photo provided by the City of Everett)
Topgolf at the Everett Mall? Mayor’s hint still unconfirmed

After Cassie Franklin’s annual address, rumors circled about what “top” entertainment tenant could be landing at Everett Mall.

A tribute to Ariel Garcia in his neighborhood on Saturday, March 30, 2024, in Everett, Washington. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
Newly released 911 call retraces days before Ariel Garcia disappeared

Family reported Janet Garcia, of Everett, had become “very violent and aggressive” in the days prior to the death of her son, age 4.

Michael O'Leary/The Herald
Hundreds of Boeing employees get ready to lead the second 787 for delivery to ANA in a procession to begin the employee delivery ceremony in Everett Monday morning.

photo shot Monday September 26, 2011
Boeing whistleblower reports dangerous ‘shortcuts’ at Everett plant

A Boeing quality engineer claims the company ignored safety concerns in the production of the 787 and 777 jets.

Washington West African Center in Lynnwood hosts newcomers for Eid

Other spiritual gatherings will be held for the end of Ramadan, a monthlong Muslim holy celebration.

Firefighters extinguished a fire that displaced 5 people Monday at the St. Frances Motel in Edmonds. (Photo provided by South County Fire)
Edmonds motel fire displaces 5

Firefighters kept the fire contained to one unit at the St. Francis Motel on Highway 99.

South County Fire Commissioner Ed Widdis swears in Fire Chief Bob Eastman on April 2, 2024 South County Fire).
Snohomish County’s biggest fire district has a new chief

Bob Eastman will oversee 350 firefighters at South County Fire, taking over for Chief Thad Hovis.

Graham Kerr, 90, leans down and kisses his new wife, Nancy, during Senior Expo on Tuesday, March 26, 2024, at Hotel Indigo in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
‘Galloping Gourmet’ celebrity chef Graham Kerr is a Stanwood newlywed

The 90-year-old shared his love of Nancy, God and Costco at the Everett senior expo last month.

Sauk-Suiattle elder mali reads a traditional Lushootseed story to a group of children and adults Wednesday, April 3, 2024, at the Darrington Public Library in Darrington, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
At Whitehorse Mountain Time, locals learn Lushootseed on ancestral land

Mary Porter, a Sauk-Suiattle elder, hosts storytime on the first Wednesday and second Monday of each month at the Darrington library.

A Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplane takes off on its first flight, Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Renton, Wash. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
FAA’s ‘cozy’ relationship with Boeing at issue again after Alaska Air blowout

“At the FAA, they talked about being a partnership,” a former employee said. “I would call it more of an abusive-spouse relationship.”

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.