Ruby Dee Aaron Christensen
1925 - 2022

❦ Early Life: Ruby Dee Aaron was born Wednesday, January 7, 1925, in the tiny east-central Oklahoma hamlet of Vivian, in McIntosh County, to Clarence Cleo Christoper and Mary Eunice Lauretta Ashmore Aaron, their eighth of eleven children. She has five brothers and five sisters and spent her early years in Oklahoma, where the Great Depression came crashing down particularly hard. The whole southern Great Plains were blowing away in dust storms, making it necessary for many to flee west. But one very important event occurred during all of this—Ruby's baptism to become a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1933, she was baptized in a tiny town that was part of the Central States Mission: Struggleville. Who could forget that? Ruby and her family joined the exodus, looking just like the Joads in The Grapes of Wrath: Well used Model A Ford stuffed with kids, mattresses strapped to the roof, and a trailer with what they could take towed behind. Destination: The Golden Gate and California. Scoring top marks and earning the honor roll throughout her years in the San Francisco schools, she graduated there in 1942 from Lowell High School.
❦ Life's Work | Service | Interests: World War II was in full bloom by then; she got a job with the federal government working as a clerk in the War Relocation Authority. A little later, she met Holley Richard "Chris" Christensen, who was about to finish dental school. They were married November 26, 1942. they were married. She was a sort of war bride, given that Chris was immediately commissioned a first lieutenant in the United States Army Air Force. Ruby often followed him from posting to posting as he engaged in serious combat with the poor oral health of endless draftees. In fall 1944, Ruby had the first of their seven children (the last wasn't born until almost exactly 17 years later, in fall 1961). A year later, the war ended, and in due course, Ruby and her now civilian dentist husband settled in a little town near Sonoma in Northern California. In 1953, they decided to relocate south to Ventura County, near Los Angeles, remaining first in Oxnard, and then Camarillo for over 30 years. In 1961, Ruby decided she wanted to earn a college degree and began taking classes at night at a local community college, when Chris could look after the children. It took ten years, but at last she graduated from California State University at Northridge with a B.A. in English and library sciences. By then, everyone was in school, of course, so she began teaching high school English. Anyone who wanted to learn English properly and thoroughly was in exactly the right place; anyone who wanted to fool around or cause trouble needed to get out fast. She enjoyed being a teacher and was very good at it, finally retiring not long before Chris retired from dentistry. All along the way, beginning when she was a young adult, she accepted and served in all sorts of callings in the Church, her favorites being Relief Society instructor and temple worker. She had some distinctive talents that allowed her to serve and delight those around her in other ways, too, including singing in church and elsewhere as a soloist and in choruses and choirs. Writing, especially poetry and poignant short-short stories, were another way she gladdened hearts and uplifted spirits. Retirement found Ruby and Chris living in a number of different places, including far Northern California, where they were called on a full-time proselyting mission for the Church. She much enjoyed a calling that had them working together all the time. The final retirement-era stop was Orem, Utah. They had been there for quite a number of years when Chris passed on in March 2009, at age 89. Ruby persisted as an enduring-to-the-end widow, spending the last few years in an assisted living residence. Ruby Dee Aaron Christensen passed away Thursday, June 23, 2022, in Provo, Utah, after 97 years, six month, two weeks, and two days.
❦ Survived By: Two sons, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and bunches of nieces and nephews.
❦ Predeceased By: Her husband, five or seven children: Shari, Robert, Jack, Joan and Eric; her parents, and all of her siblings.
❦ Obituary: © 2022 | Walker Sanderson Funeral Home
❦ Graveside & Burial: Orem City Cemetery

Bio compiled by: Annie Duckett Hundley
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Here is a little jewel Ruby once wrote, a fitting coda for this brief recollection:

Silvery drops slowly slide
Down my window pane
While the sharp-sweet scent
Of dampened earth
Push me to wander in soft rain.