Kristin Marie Feyling, 88, of Lakeland, Florida and Boothbay, Maine, died on Aug. 8, 2025 at Westminster Lakeland Senior Living from Parkinson’s Disease complications.

She was born January 31,1937 in Huntington, West Virginia during the great Ohio River flood of that year. Her mother Birgit Olsen Feyling and her father, Gerhard Tonseth Feyling, had to wade through ankle deep water at the hospital on the way to the operating room. When Kristin was 8 years old, the family moved to a remote sugar mill town in Cuba, Central Delicias, and her mother had to continue her schooling at home via the Calvert System.

At 14 she was sent to boarding school in Havana, Buena Vista Academy, where she thrived and indulged her mischievous side by organizing nighttime raids to the kitchen, according to her good friend Hattie Nan Kinsey. Later her mother moved with Kristin and her younger brother Paul to St. Petersburg, Florida so they could attend public school. After junior college Kristin went to Florida State University graduating with a Masters in Library Science. She worked for several years at FSU in the library in charge of special displays and also as campus liaison for foreign students and their spouses.

Deciding she liked working with people better than books she made a career change to nursing, getting an LPN degree and working in hospitals in Tallahassee and in Bartow, at Polk General, where she specialized in pediatric nursing. Kristin never married, but shared her love and affection with the children she cared for, with her many friends and with her family.

Eventually she retired from nursing to take care of her parents and their farm on Shepherd Road in Mulberry, Florida, allowing her parents to live out their lives at home. Kristin was deeply religious and an active member of Mulberry United Methodist church. She taught Sunday school and summer Bible school for several years, making costumes and props for the plays and presentations. She had an artistic side that friends and family appreciated in her watercolors and handmade greeting cards and her thoughtful letters.

She will always be remembered for her sweet smile, her caring personalty, and her consideration for others, especially those who needed attention. Her whole adult life she spent summers in Boothbay, Maine in the home her father built. Here she enjoyed her Maine friends, as well as gardening and rowing her skiff on the Sheepscot River. She is survived by her brother Paul Feyling, his wife Doris Weyl Feyling, their children Susan Weyl and Kirsten Feyling Ashley, spouse Mat Ashley and their eight-year-old twins, Marshall and Bennett, . She will be truly missed by all who have known her.

Memorial services are planned in October in Mulberry and Lakeland, a graveside service is planned in September in Boothbay