FALL CITY – Six weeks ago Peggy Beals honored the memory of her beloved sister Kathy Buntain, who passed away from brain cancer in 2002, by opening a consignment shop in Fall City. One of the first items Beals moved in to the new shop was a picture of her smiling sister standing in front of a stage at Balboa Park in San Diego, Calif.

“I couldn’t open the store without her here,” said Beals.

The act of opening the store brought full circle a tumultuous period in the family’s life that would find Kathy losing a brief battle with brain cancer, and Beals currently winning her fight against breast cancer.

Born and raised in San Diego, Beals and her sister eventually made their way to the Northwest. In 1998, with Beals in the Snoqualmie Valley and Kathy in La Pine, Ore., the siblings decided they would open their own store.

What was borne from the idea was Country Casuals, a consignment shop in La Pine, which is located about 20 miles south of Bend in the central portion of Oregon.

Despite holding a full-time advertising job with the local cable television company, Kathy poured her heart into the store.

“Every weekend I’d run down there and buy things or work to give her a few days off,” said Beals.

Business was solid and all appeared well until a family Christmas gathering in 2001 at Kathy’s home.

During dinner Kathy collapsed and was taken to the hospital. Kathy was eventually diagnosed with brain cancer.

It would take only seven months before Kathy passed away in July of 2002.

“It was really horrible. It came on so fast,” said Beals. “She just got worse and worse.”

What Beals didn’t know is that while her sister was waging her battle with cancer, she was about to begin her own.

“I was actually sick when Kathy was,” said Beals. “But when somebody else is sick, you put all your energy into them. I didn’t know.”

Beals said she’d been tired, but attributed it to the events in her life. It wasn’t until she rolled over in bed one night and felt a lump in her breast that she considered that being tired might be the effects of illness. A visit to the doctor in 2003 revealed that Beals had breast cancer.

After successful treatment, Beals set out to complete sorting through the clothes still in a storage unit following the close of the store in Oregon. She was almost done donating the items to charity, something she knew Kathy would have wanted, when Beals made the decision to open a new store.

“I thought, what am I doing? I need to get this thing back up,” said Beals.

With Kathy watching over her, Beals opened Country Casuals in Fall City less than two months ago.

Beals said she often finds herself thinking about her outgoing sister, who organized the La Pine’s rodeo and oversaw the city’s annual downtown Halloween trick-or-treating event hosted by local merchants for the area’s children.

“She was an amazing person,” said Beals.

The sisters often took trips together, including tracing the Oregon Trail. But it was an annual family camping outing to the Rogue River that used to draw the attention of fellow campers.

Beals said that to accommodate the large turnout, Kathy would borrow a huge tent used at the La Pine annual rodeo. Once it was set up, campers staying next to the group weren’t sure what was going to happen.

“People would say, ‘Hey, are you guys having a revival?'” said Beals. “That trip hasn’t been the same [since she passed away].”[since she passed away].”