Carl Calvin Christensen Sr., 90 of Laguna Vista, Texas, entered into eternal rest on April 17th, 2020 surrounded by his loving family. Born Friday, October 11, 1929, in San Antonio's Santa Rosa Hospital, Carl was an early C-section birth before antibiotics were in wide use. The stock market crash began the following Friday, October 18, and his childhood was spent during the Great Depression. He was raised in San Benito, Texas, by his mother, Rosa (Eubank) Christensen, the daughter of Texas settlers from San Saba, and his father, Peter Calvin Christensen, a first-generation Norwegian immigrant. His father was murdered by a hitchhiker on August 5, 1946. After graduating from San Benito High School in 1946 a year early, Carl joined the United States Marine Corps, serving with distinction as a military policeman out of the Provost Marshall's Office on Camp Pendleton, California. As a US Marine, he enjoyed riding his service-issued Harley Davidson motorcycle and practicing his marksmanship with a Colt .45 pistol. He was honorably discharged as a sergeant before the start of the Korean War. He withdrew from the mechanical engineering program at the Illinois Institute of Technology when his mother was diagnosed with cancer, returning to the family ranch near Laguna Vista in the mid-1950s. In 1958, Carl graduated with a degree in Mathematics from Texas A&I, Kingsville, and received a lifetime teaching certificate for grades 1-12. He also attended Texas A&M University where he earned a Master's Degree in Science. He was a beloved high school teacher and principal in Port Isabel and Los Fresnos, and Coordinator of Math and Science for Corpus Christi Independent School District in the early 1960s. He retired in 2001, after 43 years serving the educational needs of his community. As an educator, he coached UIL academics, and was instrumental in bringing computer programming to Port Isabel High School in the mid-1980s. He had a passion for physics, calculus, and astronomy, mastering celestial navigation as an academic hobby. A parishioner at Our Lady, Star of the Sea Catholic Church in Port Isabel for the past 44 years, Carl loved to talk with the local Port Isabel shrimpers, many of whom were his former students. He enjoyed sailing in the Laguna Madre and the Gulf of Mexico, flying, judo (he was a second-degree blackbelt), horses, and tending to his cattle ranch near Laguna Vista, Texas, by grueling manual labor. He valued physical toughness. An only child, he is preceded in death by his mother and father, his beloved wife Margaret (Levings), who died in 2018, and son-in-law Richard Redner. He is survived by his son Carl C. (Kay) Christensen, Jr., Rose Redner, Julia (Tony) Loken, Benjamin (Lynette) Christensen, Eric (Leah) Christensen, as well as his 22 grandchildren, and 4 great-grandchildren. A memorial mass will be held at a later date at Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church in Port Isabel, Texas. You may sign the online guestbook and send words of comfort or sympathy cards to family of Carl Calvin Christensen Sr. at: www.thomaegarza.com. Funeral arrangements were entrusted to the care of Thomae-Garza Funeral Home and Crematory, 395 S. Sam Houston Blvd., San Benito, Texas, (956) 399-1331.