Rosalie Christensen was born in San Diego, California, in 1935.

She was a gifted, quiet child who studied ballet and excelled in art. The eldest of 3 children with twin brothers, Jim and George, she went to school locally and graduated from La Jolla High School. Her father Bern worked in quality control as an engineer and her mother Carmelita was a homemaker. She obtained her Bachelors Degree in Fine Art in San Francisco California and attended the University of Mexico for a short time. She recieved her Masters Degree in Fine Art at San Diego State University in San Diego California.

Rosalie married Jack Christensen in Hawaii in 1957 and they had 2 children, Otto and Ana. She completed scores of watercolors for local hotels, illustrations for children's projects, greeting cards and newspaper cartoons. Exhausted during her second pregnancy, her marriage began to deteriorate. In 1960, 4 months after the birth of of her second child she took the children to San Diego to visit her parents and obtained a divorce. She was 25.

She remained in San Diego raising her children alone and with the help of her parents and in-laws Otto and Helen, was able to complete her Masters Degree in Fine Art at San Diego State University.

Upon completion of her degree she decided to move overseas and applied for art teaching positions in different countries. Her brother George helped her with the plane fares and in 1967 she left America with her young children, a couple of suitcases and her art books for Mittagong, a small sheep farming town in New South Wales, Australia.

She supported her family week to week on a small teacher's wage at Frensham Boarding School and made the best of poor housing conditions and sole parenting.

During this time she began to print fabrics using silkcreen techniques and lino cuts. She exhibited some of her pieces at a local craft center, Sturt. The dyes she used were thought to be the cause of skin discolorations that began to cover her hands, forearms and face. Tests for dermatitis and leukemia proved negative and eventually her doctor suggested she move to a warmer climate. In retrospect it is clear that these were manifestations of lupus. After 5 years in Mittagong she decided it was time to leave. Once again she applied for teaching positions all over the world and was employed to teach in the Art Department at Madang Teachers College, Papua New Guinea in 1972.

Rosalie immersed herself in her work as a teacher and conducted her own anthropological and ethnobotanical studies despite having no training in the field. She bought a second hand SLR camera and began to photo-document her teaching work. She went to villages in the Madang Province area to record building and carving techniques, crafts and food processing. She worked on the art syllabus for primary schools in Papua New Guinea and was editor and designer for several educational publications distributed to schools and students by Madang Teachers College. Some of her illustrations and photographs were used in these publications and over a period of 8 years she had accumulated a large archive of data, images and materials.

She photo-documented hundreds of artifacts many of which were exported overseas in the early 1970's by dealers and collectors. She began gathering traditional stories from villages, students and co-workers and illustrated many of them for booklets used in schools.

Her children took part as well and it was not uncommon for them to spend their school holidays and weekends in the back of a four wheel drive utility visiting villages and helping their mother with her work. They helped to photograph artifacts, tape record oral histories, document carving and building techniques, collect plants and type stories.

In the mid-1970's she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy and radiation therapy. Rosalie took a leave of absence to undergo the surgery and radiation and although surviving the cancer at that time, would recieve damaging levels of radiation to the muscles and nerves in her left arm which after many years caused atrophy and partial paralysis of the limb and hand.

She continued to work at Madang Teachers College until 1978 when her position was localized. She obtained a temporary permit to complete some of the work she had been conducting around Madang Province and moved off-campus to Nagada Plantation until she returned to the United States in 1979. At this stage Rosalie was having health problems again and was greatly disheartened with the prospect of leaving Papua New Guinea.

Her son Otto helped her with her remaining work and she would send him out to villages and different areas of bush to collect plant data. Her daughter Ana typed out traditional stories and helped her mother prepare to leave the country.

Otto returned to Australia - leaving home. Rosalie felt isolated and concerned for her children and for her own health. It is likely that at this point she was suffering from another lupus flare.

In 1979 Rosalie and her daughter packed up the books and photographs, drawings and personal effects, put them in a shipping crate, sold their Toyota Landcruiser for the plane fares back to America and left the country broke with a couple of suitcases.

Rosalie became seriously ill upon returning to the United States and was finally diagnosed with lupus in the early 1980's. Her doctor from that time until her death in 1998 was Dr. Tom Cummings.

Rosalie's medication for lupus, some of which was experimental, caused her serious side affects. She had begun to have seizures and suffered from situational depression. She underwent several surgeries and hospitalizations over the next 15 years.

She also completed many paintings and fabric pieces. She had applied for teaching jobs but was unable to obtain a position owing to her health and medical history. She did teach a course in art and creativity techniques for a short time but was not able to return to her teaching career as a means of support.

Rosalie remained in San Diego and continued to work on her Papua New Guinea Story Illustrations and in the garden. She attended classes at community colleges to learn new things and exhibited some of her fabric prints at Spanish Village, San Diego. When she could no longer draw properly she took up clay construction. She attended classes at the Craft Center at the University of California San Diego. Eventually she taught herself to use her right hand so she could make notes.

Her gardening projects provided good exercise and she landscaped an entire hillside behind her parents' house over the course of 18 years. She began Tai Chi classes in the early 1990's and this helped with her coordination and strength. Having learnt ballet and acrobatics as a child and teenager Rosalie enjoyed the forms of Tai Chi.

In 1998 Rosalie was diagnosed again with cancer and it was evident that she would not survive. Thought to have a few months to live she died at her parents home just over a week after leaving the hospital with her children Otto and Ana and son-in-law Andrew by her side.

It is hoped that people will get an idea that Rosalie Christensen not only amassed a huge amount of creative and artistic material in her lifetime - but she also did this in the face of debilitating illness and hardship over a long period of time. With no scientific training she conducted meticulous studies and observations in Papua New Guinea showing a genuine desire to discover, conserve and understand. She lived in Papua New Guinea for 8 years as a teacher and explorer.

She raised 2 children alone over 3 continents on a teacher's wage and stubbornly fought through her obstacles. Her creative will combined with her physical stamina due to heavy gardening and walking quite likely extended her life.

Dr. Tom Cummings first diagnosed Rosalie with lupus and has been kind enough to contribute.

See Health.