Apple Valley - Chris Common of Apple Valley was a mother, wife, grandmother and a devoted friend. From Fargo to Farmington, where for many years she worked in the community education program, when you had a friend in Chris, you had a friend for life.

She died Friday, July 3, 2026, at Fairview Ridges Hospital in Burnsville, after the breast cancer she beat 15 years ago reappeared in her lung last year. She was 80.

Born Mary Christine Hennessy on July 10, 1945, in Detroit Lakes, Minn., Chris grew up in Fargo, N.D., where her father, Frank Hennessy, was general manager of the Pepsi-Cola bottling plant. The family of her mother, Marguerite "Sis" Hennessy, owned the plant, along with the Fargo-Detroit Ice Co., supplier of ice to railroads and other customers.

After graduating from Fargo Central High School in 1963, Chris went on to the University of North Dakota, where she joined the Gamma Phi Beta sorority and earned a bachelor's degree in medical technology in 1967.

At the Gamma Phi house, she met a busboy named Jim Common. They married on Aug. 21, 1967, and settled in Washington state, where she worked as a medical technologist in a clinic. Their first son, Casey, was born in 1969, and the next year they moved to the Twin Cities, where Chris worked at Mount Sinai Hospital in Minneapolis and later at the Fairview Ridges emergency room in Burnsville.

In 1973, Chris and Jim bought a house in Apple Valley that would be their home for more than 50 years. Their second son, Michael, was born that same year.

In the 1980s, Chris made a midlife career change, going to work as volunteer coordinator for the Farmington school district's community education program. It was an ideal job for someone like Chris, and she stayed for almost 20 years, retiring in 2005.

Chris was a lake girl. The summers of her youth were spent at the Hennessy cottage on Lake Sallie in Detroit Lakes, and she later brought her own children there. After Chris and Jim retired, they spent many summer days at their cabin on Little Bass Lake near Remer, Minn.

She was a longtime parishioner at the Church of the Risen Savior in Burnsville.

Survivors include her sons, Casey (Beth Podtburg) of St. Paul and Michael (Jennifer Wunsch) of Boulder, Colo.; three grandchildren, Linnea, Lincoln and Wilson; a sister, Betty Hennessy of Cerritos, Calif.; and sisters-in-law Shirley Dahlgren of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and Penny Common of Clarks Summit, Pa. Chris loved all her cousins, and Jack (Kris) Risendal of Midlothian, Va., was like a brother to her.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Jim, just a year earlier; her parents; a sister, Roberta Jo Riley; her stepmother, Mary Hennessy; and aunt and uncle Betty and John Risendal.

A celebration of Chris' life will be from 1 to 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 8, at the Crystal Lake Golf Club in Lakeville. Interment at Resurrection Cemetery in Mendota Heights will be private.