Doris C Knausz

Doris C. Knausz, a retired Air Force Major, World War II Veteran and passionate organic gardener, leaves behind for friends and friends a philosophy of balancing “wants” and “needs” in their lifestyles. Doris, among the MS Coast’s 2013 Honor Flight Veterans died October 11, 2018 at the age of 96, in Biloxi, MS, where she lived for 55 years. Doris was born on May 26, 1922 in Philadelphia, PA. Before joining the war effort, she completed nursing school at Chester County Hospital, then entered a U.S. Army physical therapy program at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. “PT” was a new medical therapy invaluable for returning battlefield soldiers with debilitating injuries and missing limbs. She was commission as a second lieutenant in January 1945, with basic training at Fort Dix, NJ. Doris worked with soldiers with nerve injuries and amputees with prosthetics at England General Hospital in Atlantic City, NJ. That is also where she experienced her first hurricane, which put six feet of water in the hospital. She continued to work with injured soldiers in the years following the war, and when the Air Force became a separate service Doris received a commission as a regular USAF officer. Doris next trained at Warm Springs, GA, at a civilian center for polio care, an increasing need in the military. Her duty stations included Scott AFB in Il; the Army Occupation hospital in Wiesbaden, Germany; Wichita Falls, TX; Andrews AFB, Washington, DC; and Tachikawa, Japan. Doris’ last duty station was Keesler AFB, Biloxi, retiring in 1966. Doris’ life then turned to the challenge of rental properties and making coastal sandy soil grow things the natural way. Damage to her Biloxi land in ’69 Hurricane Camille was out shadowed by the 2005 Katrina surge and bulldozers. She lost her house and the top soil she had built up. With a smile, she would say Katrina simplified her life, cemented her philosophy of looking at everything as what is a need and what is a want, and getting along with just the needs. “It’s amazing what you can live without,” she would say. A memorial service will be held at the Howard Avenue Chapel of Bradford-O’Keefe Funeral Home on Friday, November 9, 2018 at 10 am with military honors. Friends may visit one-hour prior. Doris will be buried in the Knausz family plot in a Revolutionary War-era cemetery at Augustus Lutheran Church, Trappe, PA.