Christina "Mausi" Maria Nichols

Christina (Mausi) Maria Nichols from Munich, Germany was 78 when she transitioned to her heavenly home on April 13, 2025, likely dancing to her beloved Tirolean and Bavarian folk music. She was born during the tragic and uncertain months after World War II ended and during the Expulsion of Germans from what is now the Czech Republic. The majority of her German family had been forced to leave their generational homeland in Bohemia (also known as the Sudetenland), some to Leipzig and her parents and siblings toward Munich. They boarded the trains with only what they could carry, her mother was very pregnant with her, the sixth child. Thousands died in the expulsion process, through violence, hunger, and illness. It was during this time, on July 4, 1946, Christina Maria Weber came into the world enroute, in the refugee camp at Dollnstein, Germany. She was born to the former Berta Kammler and Wilhelm “Willi” Weber; the youngest sister to Ingeborg, Heinz, Wilhelm, Ingrid and Walter Weber. There was no food. Her mother had no milk to give the tiny malnourished baby. She was so little, she was ever after called “Mausi,” German for Little Mouse. This tiny, starving baby should have died with so many others in this desperate time. But she was determined to survive with a will that marked the rest of her life! The family eventually made it to the refugee camp in Munich, Germany. They continued to struggle with putting food on the table. Christina later told us stories of visiting farmers’ fields after the harvest to find leftover potatoes and many days of going hungry because there was nothing. Author Frank McCourt, who related his Irish upbringing in poverty in the poignant autobiography Angela’s Ashes, remarked how his childhood was a dream compared to the intense poverty he witnessed at this very refugee camp during his US military days in the sequel ‘Tis. And through this childhood of malnourishment, absent parents trying to survive, and father, Willi leaving the family altogether, Christina scrapped and survived. In spite of her tiny size, Christina excelled in school and in Gymnastics, winning many accolades. The family’s fortunes improved when Christina was a teenager and her mother married fellow Bohemian Heinz Bestner, a good man and the man Mausi would always refer to as her father. Christina went to university for Accounting and worked for some time at Siemens. Also, still a teenager, Christina met Raymond “Nick” Nichols, at a party at her oldest sister Inge’s home in the US housing area in the south of Munich. He happened to work for Inge’s husband, Arturo Padilla, at the local US Army base. Gymnastics was Christina’s passion until an accident resulted in a broken back and year-long recuperation. Raymond visited her throughout her recovery, beginning a relationship to result in marriage February 25, 1967 and lasting until the end. He was impressed with her feisty determination to survive and pull through. Christina married into Raymond’s military career, traveling to various bases and countries, and had three children, Theresa, Sonja, and Michael (Mikey.) The family spent many years in Munich, close to Christina’s family and living the bicultural German and American life. In true military fashion, the family moved alternating between the US and Europe. However, it was during the move from Texas back to Germany in 1981 in which Christina experienced her toughest loss, the death of her youngest, Mikey. Raymond secured a position back in Munich so that Christina could be near her family, until his retirement in 1985. In April 1985, her family finally moved to DeSoto, Texas and Christina worked with the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) in Dallas until her retirement. She raised her grandson Michael Nichols and remained a solid and fierce presence in the lives of grandchildren Jasmine Nichols – both Sonja’s children – as well as Jared and Maria Castle – both Theresa’s children. She further enjoyed Jasmine’s children Jazliane (Jazzy), Jocelyn (JoJo), Janet, and Katrina. As her health declined, she continued to fight back time and again each time surprising even doctors with her spunk and her tenacity. Eventually, as her health further deteriorated, there were conversations about placing her in facilities with greater opportunities for care. But Christina would have none of it. She would say that she worked all of her life to achieve her home and her treasures, rising above from the desperate poverty of her childhood. On April 13, 2025, Christina indeed passed on her terms. With the local family around her, she passed away in her home just shy of 79 years of sheer force of will. She is survived by her husband Raymond Nichols, both daughters, Theresa and Sonja Nichols, her sister, Ingrid Thes, and her four grandchildren and four great grandchildren. She is an example for all of us of having the tenacity, grit, resourcefulness, courage, humor and determination to get through the toughest of challenges. May we all remember her example any time we feel overwhelmed by life’s challenges. If in doubt of our own abilities, may we remember that we too are made of the same substance and lineage and know that she is looking on to remind us. She may be small, but she is fierce! Graveside Services will be held in the Dallas/Ft. Worth National Cemetery, 2000 Mt. Creek Pkwy., Dallas, TX on Monday - May 19, 2025 at 3:00 P.M.