Daughter of Marcella Bahler Colarich — the woman Sunne McPeak called her "Political Godmother" — and a present-day inheritor of the half-century arc of Contra Costa women's organizing she grew up inside.
Christine Colarich is recognized as a 2025 inductee of the Contra Costa Herstory Project. Her induction is in itself a statement of how the Project understands its own history: not as a closed chapter of 1973 founders, but as a continuing line whose next generation includes the daughters and direct inheritors of the Founding Mothers.
Christine is the daughter of Marcella Bahler Colarich and Henry "Hank" Colarich. Marcella was District Director for Congressman Jerry Waldie, headquarters manager for his 1974 gubernatorial campaign, and the woman Sunne Wright McPeak names in the Herstory genesis narrative as her own "Political Godmother" — the powerful role model who first taught McPeak the discipline of fundraising, candidate recruitment, and never taking "no" for an answer. Christine grew up inside that political life: a Concord household where the State Democratic Central Committee, the Clayton Valley Democratic Club, and Citizens for Waldie organizers were not abstractions but dinner-table conversation.
Her family record is documented in Hank Colarich's 2003 East Bay Times obituary, which identifies Christine as "Christine Colarich Kiernan of Martinez, CA" — a Contra Costa daughter who has remained in Contra Costa, alongside her sister Carolyn Colarich Critz of Galveston, TX, and her brother Steven of Concord. The Colarich family lost the eldest daughter, Pauline "Pam," in 1978; Christine has carried the family civic line forward.
On January 11, 2025, Christine attended the Herstory Project's "re-launch" gathering at Elaine Jegi's home in Concord — the gathering McPeak credits with reviving the Project after its long dormancy. She was one of twenty women in that room, a roster ranging from 1973 Founding Mothers (Paula Schiff, Jane Emanuel) through long-time leaders (Mary Rocha, Beverly Lane, Gail Murray, Cathryn Freitas, Laura Hoffmeister, Cindy Silva) to current elected women (Diane Burgis and Shanelle Scales-Preston as County Supervisors, Kristin Connelly as County Clerk-Recorder). The photograph from that gathering — the young elected women in front, the multi-generation organizing legacy behind them — is, in McPeak's words, "so symbolic of the legacy of NWPC in Contra Costa County."
Christine's induction in 2025 alongside her mother's earlier place in the Project — and alongside contemporaries like Shanelle Scales-Preston and Kristin Connelly who represent the present-day living legacy of NWPC's half-century of work — affirms a core Herstory principle: that a half-century of organizing makes its mark not by ending in one generation but by raising the next.
Christine's parents, Marcella Bahler Colarich and Henry "Hank" Colarich, settle in Concord in 1955 — the household where Christine grows up inside the world of state and local Democratic politics, the Clayton Valley Democratic Club, and the Waldie campaign organization that her mother helped run.
Through her mother's role as District Director for Congressman Jerry Waldie and headquarters manager for his 1974 gubernatorial campaign, Christine grows up inside the Contra Costa political organizing infrastructure that NWPC, Citizens for Waldie groups, and the Clayton Valley Democratic Club built across the County in the 1970s.
Henry "Hank" Colarich passes away in Concord on August 7, 2003. His published obituary identifies Christine as "Christine Colarich Kiernan of Martinez, CA," anchoring her place in Contra Costa County in the public record.
Christine attends the Herstory Project's January 11, 2025 "re-launch" gathering at Elaine Jegi's home in Concord — one of twenty women in a roster spanning 1973 Founding Mothers through current elected County Supervisors. McPeak credits this gathering with reviving the Project after its long dormancy.
Christine is recognized as a 2025 inductee of the Contra Costa Herstory Project, alongside contemporaries who represent the living legacy of NWPC's half-century of organizing — affirming the Project's principle that a half-century of work makes its mark by raising the next generation.