Elsie was born as Else Christensen in Alstrup Parish Denmark. Elsie's obituary incorrectly gives her year of arrival in Utah as 1860; but it does verify the fact that she crossed the plains with a handcart company. She came on the John J. Boyd in 1855. The ship arrived in 1856 in New York. She came with her father and mother and several siblings who all died in St. Louis.