Kirstin was born Kirstin Faye DeClerck in Rochester, NY by her mother Uta (Thieme) DeClerck.\u00a0 She is preceded in death by her father James F. DeClerck.\u00a0 Kirstin also leaves behind her younger sister Genevieve, \u201cGina\u201d (h Hugh), and many brothers and sisters in-law, nephews and nieces.<\/p>\n
Kirstin grew up in the foothills of San Francisco Bay Area as \u201cKiki\u201d.\u00a0 Her family moved to the Chicago suburbs in 8th grade, where Kiki ran track and swam competitively and graduated from high school in the spring of 1987.\u00a0 Later that fall, Kirstin attended her father\u2019s alma mater John Carroll University in Cleveland Ohio.\u00a0 Kirstin studied business and communications.\u00a0 She was a member of a sorority and a co-ed frority ski club.\u00a0\u00a0It was at JCU where Kirstin was pursued by the love of her life, Matthew G. Miller.\u00a0 A blind date with Matt was orchestrated early in her sophomore year.\u00a0 The two fell passionately in love and married March 11, 1995.<\/p>\n
After working various jobs since high school, Kirstin began what God had for her ultimate career: A stay-at-home mom raising a family.\u00a0 Mason James (w Jordan Lynn) was born in 1998.\u00a0 Zachary Thomas (w Alexandra, granddaughter Westie) followed 17 months later.\u00a0 Corrinne Julianne (fianc\u00e9 Damon) was gifted by the Lord to the family in 2003.<\/p>\n
Kirstin began home-schooling her children when it was quite uncommon.\u00a0 \u00a0Her family moved to Bethel Park in 2006.\u00a0 She worked diligently at this and attended a home-schooling co-op with her children twice a month for a few years.\u00a0 Kirstin then began her own co-op in the south hills for other home-schooling families.\u00a0 Kirstin also volunteered and involved the kids in 4-H and Boy Scouts.\u00a0 Kiki loved the summer heat, gardening, walking, and tanning.\u00a0 Her vacations with her family were always cherished in the sun at her grandfather\u2019s cottage at Lake Canandaigua, NY.\u00a0 The sand and beach were also favorites where she could enjoy one of her greatest hobbies of all, reading.<\/p>\n
When the kids were a little older, God called on Kirstin to fill a Youth Pastor position at Christ United Methodist Church.\u00a0 Kirstin\u2019s faith journey began when she was saved as a teenager in Young Life.\u00a0 That experience and raising a family with Matt, gave Kirstin the gift of helping other families, while providing benefits to her own family, but most importantly spread the Word of God.<\/p>\n
Kirstin\u2019s faith in Jesus never stopped expanding, even while fighting cancer to her last breath.\u00a0 The number of lives she impacted is beyond measure.\u00a0 Christ\u2019s love is beyond measure.\u00a0 \u00a0She will be remembered by her friends and family as Kiki, Kirstin, Mom, and Kiki again: grandmother.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kirstin was born Kirstin Faye DeClerck in Rochester, NY by her mother Uta (Thieme) DeClerck.\u00a0 She is preceded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-290143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}