Lois Esther Christensen, R.N.

She was a newly graduated registered nurse and a recently commissioned officer in the Air Force. Had she lived longer, her tour of duty would have included service in Vietnam.

Lois was prepared for a life of selfless devotion to others by her parents who served in churches in New Jersey, New York, Vermont, and Pennsylvania. Her father’s family immigrated from Norway, her mother’s from Germany. Her maternal grandfather served in World War I and her mother’s brother was killed in action in World War II at Iwo Jima.

David Christensen graduated from Philadelphia School of the Bible, married in 1940, had son David in 1941, and was ordained in 1942. Later that year Lois was born while the family was living in northern New Jersey. There were probably one or two other churches they served before coming to Bellmawr, Camden County, New Jersey in the late 1950s. David’s wife was organist, choir director, and Sunday School teacher at the various churches.

Lois graduated from Triton Regional High School in nearby Runnemede in 1960. Her brother went to Temple and put his medical degree to work in Nigeria as a missionary. Lois went to Philadelphia General Hospital’s School of Nursing, graduating in 1963. 

She could have stayed and had her choice of employers but the calling to do more led her to the military. Along with her fellow nurse and friend from Philly, Lois was commissioned 2nd lieutenant in the Delaware Air National Guard in the spring of 1964. 

Their next stop was Gunnar Air Force Base, Alabama for six weeks of training for the Medical Corps. She was assigned to the 142d Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, and this is a 1965 photo of the aircraft in which she would have deployed to Vietnam, a Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter.

On the first of August, 1964 the two women began the drive from Philly to Alabama, taking turns behind the wheel. They were in High Point, North Carolina around 1:30am the next day when the car left the road and travelled on the median strip about 300 feet before hitting a drainage ditch. It overturned and Lois was killed instantly due to multiple head injuries. Ellen suffered abrasions and shock but her life may have been saved because she was asleep at the time.

Lois’ remains were brought here for burial after a funeral service in Camden. Her parents were living in Brooklyn at the time, her brother was in Haddon Heights, New Jersey and her grandmother was nearby in Merchantville. 

That grandmother’s parents, Elihu and Adolphine Bibighaus, were in a family plot in Section 151 on the Yeadon side of the cemetery. That’s where Lois was buried, as was her brother’s wife in 1975 and her mother in 2002. Since her father and brother died after Mount Moriah was abandoned in 2011, they were buried elsewhere. 

Her gravestone is inscribed with New York as her home state although it was actually her parents’ residence at the time. Beneath her rank are the lines, “42d Aeromedical Evac Flight ANGUS” but should have been “142d.” The abbreviation is for “Air National Guard, United States.”