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Joan Warnhuis was born November 29, 1916, at the Vellore Mission in India, where her father was a Dutch Reform minister and her mother, a physician. When Joan was eight, they left India for Holland, Michigan, her father’s birthplace. Soon after, he was appointed to a church on Staten Island, New York, and Joan finished high school there. After finishing high school in three and a half years, she was invited by her maternal aunts to spend the last semester in England and Scotland. She then returned to the States to attend Vassar College in New York, where she majored in history.

After Vassar, she went on to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where she received a master’s degree in international affairs. She wished to distance herself from anything having to do with war, so service in the diplomatic corps (a longtime goal) seemed an unlikely option. Her pacifist beliefs led her to a position with the American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia, where she served for a time as field secretary, traveling in Ohio and Indiana. As a result, she found herself spending considerable time with Friends (Quakers), and eventually joined a Friends meeting. She earned a master's degree in early childhood education from Columbia University. In Cleveland, Ohio, she met Edmund Christopherson at a Friends meeting, and they later married. He was a conscientious objector who opposed World War II. He was assigned alternative service, first in North Dakota, and later in Missoula, Montana, where he was a smokejumper.

Once settled in Missoula, she taught high school English in Stevensville. Then she was hired in 1958 by the University of Montana (then Montana State University) to teach child development in the Home Economics Department, and to direct the nursery school and kindergarten. She retired from this position in 1975.

In addition to being a professor, wife, and mother, Joan was a life-long community activist. She was among the founding members of the Missoula League of Women Voters in the early 1950s and was active in the Missoula Democratic Party for many years. She was also a charter member of the Amnesty International chapter of Missoula and worked for many years with the state coalition against the death penalty. She served on the boards of Missoula Community Access Television (MCAT) and the Coalition for Nursing Home Reform. She wa active on the University of Montana campus in the Women's Center. She also served as North Pacific Yearly Meeting’s representative to the Friends Committee on National Legislation, on Missoula Friends Meeting’s social concerns committee, and as Clerk of the meeting.

The Christophersons had four children – Ann, Jan, Jeanne, and Ian. Mr. Chrisopherson died in 1974. Mrs. Christopherson died October 18, 2002 in Ronan, Montana.