Christina Free

Christina S. Free

November 10, 1947 – March 21, 2022

Christina was the daughter of Lloyd A. Free, Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s public opinion pollster for 35 years and Director of the Institute for International Social Research, and Elsbeth Studer, born in Switzerland who met her father during World War II when he was an American spy who got downed American pilots out of Germany through Switzerland. She grew up in Washington, DC; Rome, Italy; and Princeton, N.J. She has a twin sister, Kathie, a brother who is a year older, Peter, and another brother, Andrew, born much later, who is 9 years younger. She also has a beloved brother-in-law Paul, Kathie’s husband, and dear nephew, Jason, their son.

Christina began taking ballet lessons at 13 years of age and went on to become a student at the first ballet high school in America, The Washington Ballet School under the direction of Mary Day. She was so talented that she went on to study further at the American Ballet Theatre and Joffrey Ballet Company in New York City. Later, she spent years teaching ballet in the Chicago area and her students called her, “Madame Christina”, and adored her! Her twin sister, Kathie, thinks she was the most beautiful ballerina she had ever seen!

But the center and love of her life was not ballet. The center of her heart and life was Jesus Christ. She met Him in a personal way when Pastor Jerry Hall of the Annandale, VA, National E. Free Church shared the good news with her about Jesus Christ and how if she surrendered her life to Him and received Him into her heart as Savior and Lord, she would be born of the Holy Spirit and become a child of God—forgiven of all her sins and failures and bound for heaven when she died. Since that day, in April of 1973, she lived for Jesus! When she was diagnosed with a severe illness in 1986, it did not diminish her love for Him. And when she became brain damaged in May of 2007, her love for Jesus did not end! To the very end of her life, she clung to Jesus, adored Him, and believed that He would receive her into heaven when she died. And He has! She is not in the grave—she is in heaven with her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!