Elizabeth Jane Christensen: Dauntless Libby won every fight but one

She was an ardent advocate for equality, breaking down barriers for women in engineering.

She was resolute in her mission to eradicate math phobias in the numerically disinclined.

She was a dauntless, cross-bow-wielding combatant in the medieval battles staged by her Sierra Vista barony as part of the Society for Creative Anachronism.

And she was ferocious in her war with cancer, the only fight she couldn't win.

Stuart Gellman, a chaplain on the palliative-care team at University Medical Center, where Christensen died Aug. 7 at age 44, said she had "the heart and the fight of a lion."

Her fighting spirit likely came from Christensen's Viking lineage. A couple of centuries ago, her great-grandfather fought to overthrow a Russian czar who had his eye on Finland, said her father, Dr. Owen Christensen.

Massachusetts-born Elizabeth — Libby — was an intelligent, bookish child, said her siblings, but not above defending herself with occasional fisticuffs.

"You develop the ability to fight and be a warrior when you are one of five kids, and there were times when she and her twin sister duked it out," older sister Julia Bruce said.

After earning a bachelor's degree in math from Smith College and another in engineering from Dartmouth College, Libby Christensen went to work, in 1989, as a civilian employee with the U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command at Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista.

She began as an intern with a GS-7 clearance — the grading criteria for positions classified under the General Schedule system — and rose to GS-14 clearance. Just a month before her death, Christensen was talking about applying for an open GS-15 position — the highest level she could reach, said her friend of 18 years, Denise Tidwell. The two met when Christensen began working at the Army post.

"I don't think she ever admitted it (cancer) was going to win," Tidwell said.

Christensen also expected to visit her family in Massachusetts for Christmas and made plans to earn her Ph.D.

Her job took her all over the world, and Christensen even volunteered to go to Iraq a few winters ago.

"She went over there because it was the holiday season and she was single with no kids and she wanted people with families to be able to spend Christmas with them," said her older brother, Matthew Christensen.

The family has a photo of Libby sitting on a large, ornate throne in Saddam Hussein's Iraq hunting lodge.

After a few years of travelling to various posts for her job, Christensen went back to Fort Huachuca 10 years ago. Not long after returning to Sierra Vista, she met Carol Lewis, who also worked at the Fort. When not at her job on base, Christensen taught math at Cochise College and tutored students. Lewis needed help in that area for her job and Christensen was eager to provide it.

"She's a math genius," Lewis said. "She kept insisting I was good at math and I denied it."

Christensen shared her love of math with Lewis, and Lewis shared her love of the Middle Ages with Christensen.

"We dragged her off to war," said Lewis, who introduced Christensen to the Society for Creative Anachronism. "She was a Viking at heart, so she took on a Viking persona. We put a crossbow in her hands and armor on her, and life has never been the same."

The society is an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe, its Web site says.

"We do role-playing games," Lewis said. "She liked dressing up. She used to be a Trekkie, way back when. It was kind of a natural thing for her."

Indeed, before discovering the society, Christensen attended the occasional "Star Trek" convention in a costume made by her sister Julia. Sometimes she got her twin sister, Amy Christensen Hodgman, or one of her nieces or nephews to join her.

"It's aggressive. They go into combat, not with lethal weapons but with pretty wicked stuff," said Owen Christensen of society events. "She just got intrigued, maybe because of her Finnish background."

Because none of the four other Christensen kids would acquiesce to their father's wishes and give one of their children the family name Aestrid, Libby adopted the moniker as her battlefield persona. She was known as Lady Aestrid Ovesdottir.

Christensen drew out of every experience all of the enjoyment it had to offer, whether riding her bike along the San Pedro River, working out in the gym with friends, curling up with a cup of tea and her cats Chammie and Pekoe, scuba diving in the Sea of Cortez with her father, or roughhousing with nieces and nephews.

"She was a loving person and she cared about other people," said her youngest brother, Andrew. "And she never wanted to let anyone else down."

During Christensen's last week, she was heavily sedated to dull the pain of her bone cancer, but she was still aware of her surroundings. Family and friends took turns reading her the final Harry Potter book.

"Libby's gift was her ability to make you believe in yourself," Lewis said. "It really didn't matter what you wanted to do, she just made you believe you could do it. She had the ultimate faith in people. When she was fighting the cancer, she had that belief she could beat it."

After Christensen's death, her sisters decided to take one more road trip with her. Amy and Julia loaded Libby's boxed cremains into her favorite teal-colored travel tote and hit the road from Sierra Vista to Massachusetts, stopping along the way to snap photos of themselves and Libby en-tote. They have photos of the three at landmarks including Meteor Crater in Northern Arizona, the Continental Divide in New Mexico, the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere in Texas, a giant statue of Elvis and one of B.B. King in Tennessee and under a sign for Elizabethtown, Pa.

"It was kind of a sisterly journey back to the homeland," said Hodgman, whom Libby put through nursing school.

"That was really kind of special. We figured it was our last trip together," Bruce said.

"It was very therapeutic," said Libby's twin. "And I think it was more fun than being crammed under an airplane seat as carry-on."

Find a photo gallery of this Life Story at azstarnet.com/slideshows

Life Stories

This feature chronicles the lives of recently deceased Tucsonans. Some were well-known across the community. Others had an impact on a smaller sphere of friends, family and acquaintances. Many of these people led interesting — and sometimes extraordinary — lives with little or no fanfare. Now you'll hear their stories. Past "Life Stories" are online at go.azstarnet.com/lifestories