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In 1888, Joachim Murie and Marie Frimanslund moved from Yavick, Norway to Moorhead, Minnesota and married almost immediately. Together with Marie’s brother, Henrick, they purchased a homestead. Their first child, Olaus, was born on March 1, 1889. Marie gave birth to five more children, including Martin (1891) and Adolph (1899). In 1895, Joachim died at the age of thirty-seven likely due to tuberculosis. In April of 1899, Marie married Ed Winstrom, a Swedish bartender in Moorhead. Unfortunately, Ed died from tuberculosis two months into their marriage, but Adolph was already conceived. In 1909, the family also adopted a girl named Clara. To help with family finances, they cut grass for their neighbors, worked for local gardeners, and hunted and fished alongside the Red River. Olaus and Adolph both attribute this time of camping, hunting, fishing, and canoe-making to stimulating their fascination with the natural world.

Elsie Mallinger was born near Sabin, Minnesota on March 2, 1903, the seventh of nine children. Her parents, John and Elizabeth Mallinger, moved to a farm near Ada, Minnesota when Elsie was young. Elsie entered country school at age four. Eventually she started teaching other students in the back of the class while the teacher continued teaching in the front. Elsie graduated high school at age sixteen and returned to her family’s farm for some time. She then attended Dakota Business College in Fargo, graduating in seven weeks.

Until the early 1970s, Concordia College imposed restrictive rules and strict regulations pertaining to women’s curfews and lights out.  The questioning of authority surrounding the Vietnam War and the feminist movement helped to empower female Cobbers to advocate for their personal freedom. Through a variety of strategies such as demonstrations, lobbying, and expressing opinions in the campus newspaper, women studying at Concordia gained personal freedom and independence when Women’s Hours were eliminated in 1973.