Friends of Apalachee High School math teacher Cristina Irimie say the always-smiling woman had two big passions: She loved her Romanian heritage and she loved working with children.
Nicolae Clempus met Irimie, one of four people killed in Wednesday’s shooting at the Barrow County high school, when he moved to the United States in 2001. Irimie had immigrated from Romania a few years earlier and was active in the expat community in Georgia, he said. She made him feel welcome.
Clempus, the parish priest at Saint Mary Romanian Orthodox Church in Dacula, said he quickly learned Irimie was someone “you know you can count on.” Saint Mary’s was one of two churches Irimie, 53, attended, he said.
Funeral arrangements for Irimie were announced Monday. A viewing will take place from 4-8 p.m. Friday at Hamilton Mill Memorial Chapel and Gardens, 3481 Hamilton Mill Road in Buford. The funeral is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday at the same location. That will be followed by a memorial meal at Saints Constantine and Helen Romanian Orthodox Church in Lilburn.
Any time the church held an event or festival, Irimie was there volunteering — either cooking, serving food or dancing. Clempus said she loved to dance.
Credit: Barrow County
Credit: Barrow County
As a young person, Irimie was part of a traditional Romanian dance group from the Transylvania region. She traveled with the group, and that’s how she ended up in Georgia originally, Clempus said.
As she got older, she became a dance instructor and helped teach a children’s dance group at the church.
Irimie didn’t have children but was always surrounded by kids, he said.
“She definitely had a gift to work with young people,” Clempus said.
Irimie always knew she wanted to be a teacher. She taught first in Romania, then continued her career after moving to the U.S. At Apalachee, she taught math to English-language learners, said Jordan Rushing, the head of the school’s math department.
“You want to talk about somebody who loved kids?” Rushing said. “She was able to build such a connection with those kids. Those classes are generally a little bit smaller in nature, about 15 kids in the class. Just a family atmosphere that she had in her classroom, it was unmatched.”
Rushing described Irimie as a “firecracker” and a ball of energy. His daughter is in eighth grade but spent a lot of time with him at the high school. Irimie would give the teenager a hug every morning when she saw her.
“I’ll tell you, it was so hard (Wednesday) breaking the news,” Rushing said. “As a dad, when a kid asks you why — why would anybody want to do something like that — and you don’t have an answer, it’s so difficult.”
Rushing said Irimie was always trying to cheer up others. Clempus said she had an infectious laugh.
“She was always very joyful, always happy,” he said. “If you hear somebody laughing, Christina was in the middle of it.”
Another friend, Silvia Pasch, said she got to know Irimie while volunteering with her at Saints Constantine and Helen Church in Lilburn, the second church Irimie attended.
The church holds festivals every spring and fall to celebrate Romanian culture. This past spring, Pasch said she was in the kitchen chopping vegetables while Irimie was practicing with the children’s dance group. At one point, the dance lesson turned into a math lesson when a student said she was struggling with an algebra concept.
“She said, ‘This is not so difficult, you can do it,’” Pasch said. “Even me, I listened to what she said because I thought I might learn something.”
The next festival is in October, and Pasch said it will be hard without Irimie.
“I bet when we are cutting potatoes and vegetables we will talk about her,” she said.
Pastor George Acsente, who ministers at Saints Constantine and Helen Church, said he’s known Irimie and her husband, Dorin, for more than a decade. Acsente described her as joyful and full of life, and said she had a “teacher voice” that was commanding but kind.
Both pastors said her husband is in shock over the news.
“He asked, ‘Why is my love not home?’” Acsente said.
Most of their family still lives in Romania. Irimie’s mother had recently visited and returned home about a week ago, he said.
“She was so proud of Christina,” he said.
The pastors said Irimie used the traditional Romanian spelling of her name, Cristina, in her personal life but also went by Christina, the Anglicized spelling.
Along with Irimie, fellow math teacher Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall and two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, were also killed Wednesday.
The tight-knit Romanian community in the Atlanta area is reeling from the news. Acsente said the Romanian consulate reached out to him Thursday morning to ask if they could help. Mass shootings like this just don’t happen where they’re from, he said.
Clempus said Irimie has made their community proud.
“She’s a hero for us now,” Clempus said. “She’s an example.”
Acsente said his church set up a GoFundMe campaign to help her family with funeral expenses.
“She dedicated her life to shaping the minds and hearts of students and the community,” an organizer wrote.
— Staff writer Fletcher Page contributed to this article.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated following new information from the Georgia Bureau of Investigations regarding how Irimie spelled her name.
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