Elfrida Katherine Klingenberg Fikstad

Biography

Elfrida Katherine Klingenberg Fikstad, who was called Kitty as a child, was born on February 10, 1904 in Bergen, Hordaland, Norway. She was the second of five children. When she was just nine months old, her parents took her and her older sister Sissie and immigrated to Utah. They left from Oslo on November 16, 1904 and sailed on the SS Cedric from Liverpool to New York.
Once in Utah, Kitty's father struggled to find work. He turned to alcohol to distract him from his troubles. Kitty had three younger siblings born in Utah, a sister and two brothers. One of her brothers died when he was just a few months old. In 1909, Kitty's mother passed away from a fatal case of appendicitis. As their father was not fit to care for the children and her grandfather in Norway never replied to the letters sent to him, Kitty and her siblings were taken in by local families. Kitty clung to her older sister Sissie, so they were adopted together. Kjersten Peterson, a Danish woman, and her husband Jakob Christiansen Fikstad took them in. They raised the two girls in Manti, where they ran a Scandinavian store. They faced some financial hardships, but still provided their daughters with many opportunities.
On June 10, 1936, Elfrida married Junius Golden Edwards, a resident of Provo, in Manti. They had four sons together, the eldest of which were twins. Their younger two sons both passed away within a few months of their births. Elfrida and Junius settled in Pocatello, Idaho. Junius passed away just ten years after their wedding, leaving Elfrida a widow for many years. She worked and kept busy in her community in Pocatello, where she passed away on August 15, 1994, at the age of ninety.