Elaine remembers when she was a little girl going to get her father at the wire works after he got off work. After her father died, her mother moved the family to the family farm in Hesperia. In winter they would move into town and her mother worked in a box factory. They would grow pickles for Heinz and she remembers how some of them would hide when they were picking them, daily, so that by the next day’s picking they would be to large to include in the shipment.

She was a Girl Scout leader for 17 years and she chose the name ELKie, from her initials, as her camp name. This is so her daughters would not call her “mom” at meetings or at camp - a girl scout tradition.