"Her plan in life was to be a research scientist in chemistry," Johnson said. "But she decided that what she really wanted to do was go to Africa and work in the Peace Corps for two years before she started her regular work."
Keeping with her family's tradition of volunteering, Elizabeth Alden Landis was serving in the Peace Corps when she was killed in an automobile accident in Mozambique
Granddaughter was keeping up Englewood family's volunteerism legacy
Posted on Tuesday, December 27, 2011 3:29 pm
by Melissa Hayes
Keeping with her family's tradition of volunteering, Elizabeth Alden Landis was serving in the Peace Corps when she was killed in an automobile accident in Africa.
Landis, the granddaughter of longtime Englewood community volunteer Joan Van Alstyne Johnson, was serving in Mozambique when the accident occurred Dec. 20. The Yarrow Point, Wash., resident was 23.
"Her plan in life was to be a research scientist in chemistry," Johnson said. "But she decided that what she really wanted to do was go to Africa and work in the Peace Corps for two years before she started her regular work."
Landis, who would often visit her grandmother when she was studying at Boston University, travelled to Montpellier, France, where she taught English before joining the corps.
Johnson said at age 17 her granddaughter went to Bosnia to work at with Bosnian and Serbian children at camps.
"She was the most the wonderful young woman," she said. "It's just tragic."
Landis arrived in Mozambique in September for training and was sworn in as a volunteer Dec. 8. She was assigned to teach chemistry at a rural secondary school.
Johnson said as a first-year volunteer Landis was not able to come home for the holidays, so she travelled with other volunteers to the coast to go surfing. She said Landis and several of her friends got a ride back from an unlicensed driver who crashed the car, throwing the passengers out of the vehicle. He fled the scene after the accident, she said.
Landis and Lena Jenison, of Wisconsin, died in the crash. Jenison was also teaching science at a local school
"Alden and Lena were both committed and dedicated Peace Corps volunteers who were excited to teach in their new Peace Corps communities," Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams said in a statement. "This is a tragic loss for the entire Peace Corps community, including their fellow volunteers in Mozambique. Our thoughts are with both of their families during this difficult time."
Landis was the first in her family to serve in the Peace Corps, but comes from a long line of public servants and volunteers who first settled in Englewood's first ward in the late 1800s.
Her great grandfather David Van Alstyne Jr. lead the Bergen County Republican Party and was a prominent state senator. His wife Janet Graham Van Alstyne served as a board trustee for Englewood Hospital in the 1940s and volunteered as a nurse's aid there during World War II.
Johnson has long been involved in city organizations, leading The Community Chest, serving on the board at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, the Junior League of Bergen County, the Family and Social Service Federation, the Volunteer Center of Bergen County and the Garden Club of Englewood, which her mother also volunteered with.
She has also served as a trustee of the Elisabeth Morrow School, the American Anorexia-Bulimia Association, and Flat Rock Brook Nature Center Association and on the boards of American Red Cross Bergen Crossroads Chapter and Northern Valley League of Women Voters.
"My family volunteers, that's what we do," Johnson said.
