Elna Swendsen Anderson was born on 21 November 1866 as the illegitmate daughter of Anna Marna Larsdotter and Sven Bengtsson. She knew of the gospel of Jesus Christ for much of her life, as her mother had converted by then. In 1877, she immigrated to Utah with her older half-sister Bengta. She lived with various siblings in Utah while she grew up. She married Danish immigrant Hans Severin Rasmusen on 9 December 1885 in Logan, Utah. She never had any children of her own, but became an adopted mother for many children as she and her husband took in needy children to help raise them. She died on 22 July 1928 in American Fork, Utah and was buried Pleasant Grove, Utah.