SMITH-DUFALA A. KRISTIN (GRELLER) Died Sunday, August 16, 2015, at Good Samaritan Hospice in Wexford after a yearlong battle with cancer. She was 65, though always had a youthfulness and vigor that belied her age. A lifelong Sewickley resident, Kris grew up at Rock Top Farm, her family's homestead in Sewickley Heights. After graduating from of the Ellis School in Shadyside, she earned her Bachelor's degree in Business from Boston University and returned to Pittsburgh to begin a career in retailing. She got her start as an assistant buyer for the former Gimbel's Department Store. With a natural eye for color, design and craftsmanship, she soon became a buyer of home furnishings for May Co.'s Kaufmann's Department Store Division. She managed purchasing, advertising and merchandising of textiles, furniture, lamps and decorative accessories during a period when Kaufmann's expanded from eight to 46 stores. After 21 years at Kaufmann's, Kris became merchandise coordinator for the Pittsburgh operations of Mikasa in the late 1990s, which at the time ranked as the third largest U.S. importer of home decorative accessories. She later moved to Levin's, a Smithton, PA-based home furnishings retailer, where she spent six years as a merchandising manager, responsible for products worth $50 million of the company's sales. Looking for a break from the road travel, hours and pace of retail, Kris began an early retirement in 2004, though quickly found she didn't tolerate too much idle time well. Always gregarious and industrious, she picked up part-time jobs to put her back among people, first at the former Select Food Market's deli in Sewickley and later helping run a liquidation sale at Travel Wares. After another hiatus, she went back to retail in 2012, staging store liquidations in Pennsylvania and Michigan for R.J. Rau Company. Despite an impressive career, Kris wasn't all work. She was full of play and loved entertaining. For her, great fun revolved around great meals, whether at good restaurants or from her own kitchen. A self-described foodie, she was a wonderful cook and loved nothing more than donning an apron and preparing soup-to-nuts dinner parties, not uncommonly for 20 or more guests. As much as Kris enjoyed a hearty meal, she enjoyed a hearty laugh. With her quick wit and quirky humor, she was great company, the quintessential people person. But she also liked time alone indulging her not-so-guilty pleasures. She doted on her Siamese cats and loved lounging with them in bed or on the couch while she paged through magazines, read books and took in a steady stream of what she jokingly called bad TV. She was a news junkie and also a fan of documentaries, cooking and travel shows and sitcoms. The Big Bang Theory was a favorite. Kris brought her marvelous sense of style to everything she did. Among other ways, she put her stamp on two seaside cottages on North Carolina's Outer Banks. The first, she and her husband Allen renovated and called Surroundings. The second they built and called Watercolours. Kris had first visited the Outer Banks with a friend in her youth. They slept in a tent and she vowed then to one day own a house there. It was just one of the dreams she turned into reality. Her home on the Pamlico Sound was her idea of heaven. Given God's grace and her own indomitable spirit, she managed a final visit there just two months before her death. In addition to her husband, Allen Dufala, Kris is survived by her sister, Elizabeth Greller of Baltimore, MD; her brother, Andrew Greller (Caroline) of Sewickley; her mother and father in-law, Dorothy and Arthur Dufala of Arizona; her stepdaughter, Lucy Dufala of Pittsburgh; sisters-in-law, Karen Hayes (Robert) of New York, Judith Beall (the late Joseph) of Virginia and D.J. Patella (Rick) of Arizona; and nieces, Sydney Beall, Spencer Beall and Hannah Beall of Virginia. She was preceded in death by her mother, Audrey Greller; her father, Andrew Greller; her stepmother, Alice Greller; and her stepson, A. Henry Dufala. A memorial service will be held for Kris at Christ Church Grove Farm Saturday, August 29, 2015, at 11:00 a.m. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Good Samaritan Hospice Wexford site, American Cancer Society or the Pittsburgh Association for the Blind. Arrangements by COPELAND'S SEWICKLEY. Send condolences post-gazette.com/gb
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