Doris Litty Albertson

Doris Albertson was born on December 4th, 1931 in Yonkers, New York to Martin and Marta (Zoerner) Litty. She had one brother, Fred Dietrich Litty (1930–2014), and one sister, Rosemarie Charlotte Litty Albright (1928–2008). Her family emigrated from Germany to the U.S. in 1930, but returned to Germany in 1935 due to Doris’s mother’s difficulty in acclimating to living in crowded apartments during the hot, humid New York City summers. Furthermore, she greatly missed her siblings in Berlin, Germany, and speaking no English, she was unable to communicate with neighbors and church people. No one could have foreseen that in just four short years later the family would be caught up in the throes of WWII. Doris’s father was drafted by the German army in 1941 and was sent to the Russian front. Doris, her mother, and siblings remained living in their four-story apartment house in Lankwitz, one of the suburbs of Berlin.

On August 23rd, 1943, Lankwitz was the target of a brutal bombing attack during which 95% of the suburb was leveled to the ground. The first miracle of the night was the fact that no one in Doris’s family was trapped under the debris nor did they sustain any serious injuries. The second miracle of the night was that they were able to safely exit the totally destroyed burning building, while the next-door neighbors had no escape and consequently perished. Doris and her family now had to depend on friends and family members to house all four of them, usually in one spare room. Thus, they survived two more years of war including Russian occupation.

In May of 1945, the war ended and the family was miraculously reunited in West Berlin. Doris returned to the U.S. in 1946, and graduated from Andrew Jackson High School in Queens, N.Y. in 1949. While saving up money to enter nursing school, Doris worked briefly as a nanny for Gloria Vanderbilt, caring for her 15-month-old son. In 1955 she earned her diploma as a registered nurse and worked for the next nine years mostly with pediatric patients.

Doris’s own spiritual growth began when she responded one Sunday evening to a Gospel message given via an object lesson. There was no invitation given and no counseling offered in this Exclusive Plymouth Brethren Assembly, which met in a makeshift storefront church, but Doris remembered clearly kneeling at her bedside that night, admitting to God that she was one of the sinners for whom Jesus died and rose again and invited Jesus into her heart and life. To her amazement she learned the next morning that her brother had also made the same decision by the leading of the Holy Spirit. Both were baptized in the Long Island Sound.

In 1964, while attending Houghton College, she became aware of the spiritual needs of children and attended the three-month Child Evangelism Fellowship Institute. She was then asked to start the ministry of Child Evangelism Fellowship in New York City. This is where she met Elmer Albertson. They were married in 1966 and both devoted their lives to living by faith, in order to train men and women and teenagers how to reach thousands of children with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The ministry led them from Staten Island, N.Y. to Hackensack, N.J. and Pennsylvania until they retired and moved to Lynchburg, VA in 2003.

Doris passed away in the early morning of July 31, 2026 with her son by her side. Doris is survived by her loving husband of 60 years, Elmer A. Albertson, and their only son, Timothy, who is a graduate of Liberty University and resides in Forest, VA, and by her three grandchildren, Kyle Mummau (Hannah), Alisha Mummau Peterson (Zachary), and Aaron Mummau, and two great-granddaughters. She is also survived by a first cousin, Dr. M. Frank Litty, with whom she was very close, who currently resides in Albany, NY with his wife Michele.

A visitation and reception will be held Saturday, August 8, 2026, from 11:00 am until 12:00 noon followed by a celebration of her life at 12:00 pm at Diuguid Waterlick Chapel with Pastor Rod Kidd officiating. Interment will be in Fort Hill Memorial Park.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations in her memory be sent to Heritage Baptist Church, 219 Breezewood Dr, Lynchburg, VA 24502.

Online condolences may made at www.diuguidfuneralservice.com.

Diuguid Waterlick Chapel, 434-237-2722, is serving the family.