Anna Marie Christiansen was born in 1905 in a small house next to the home that her parents later built and across the field from her present home in Commerce City.

Anna graduated from Manuel High School and married Ludvig Toxvard in 1926. The couple lived in Englewood until they built the present home in 1931. She lived there until she was moved to the Foothill Care Center in Longmont.

Anna and Ludvig had four children, Earl, Bently, Elaine and Kent. Anna was also mother to three sons from Earl's first wife's previous marriage. She has seven grandchildren and six great grandchildren.

Ludvig established a hog ranch and raised hogs until his retirement. He was a charter member of the Volunteer South Adams County Fire Department for many years.

Anna was an artist who loved to paint china and painted many vases and cake plates with flowers and animals. She painted coffee sets with flowers and painted china tiles.

For 30 years Anna was an active 4-H leader in Adams City, Derby and the surrounding areas. Ann Emerson of Commerce City lived across the creek from the Toxfords and was one of Anna's 4-H girls. Anna taught sewing and cooking. Her daughter, Elaine Dornan relates that many stitches had to be pulled out to perfect the sewing entries that went into the County fair in Brighton each year. The girls won ribbons for their projects because Anna taught them to be proud of what they were sewing or baking. Anna never missed a fair and entered an item each year for herself. She has 75 or more ribbons that she won at the fair.

Anna kept scrapbooks with clippings of the many exciting things that the Adventures 4-H club did over the years. The scrapbooks are full of pictures of happy girls who made Christmas cards for a day nursery on Clarkson Street and sewed for veterans at Fitzsimmons Hospital. The club planted junipers at Kearney School in May of 1954. The State Home and training School in Ridge Colorado received toys of all kinds from the 4-H club; many of them were homemade. In 1957 the 4-H club bought a red wagon and sent it to the children. At Easter time the Adventurers 4-H Club under the leadership of Mrs. Toxvard made 38 dozen cookies for the servicemen who came to the Denver USO Service Men's Center. The cookie jar stood as a symbol of western hospitality on the counter at the servicemen's center. The Adventurer's 4-H Club also gave scrapbooks to the children at the National Jewish Hospital and to the Children's Hospital in Denver.

Another one of Anna's talents was decorating cakes. She made over 500 wedding cakes and special occasion cakes for people living in and around Adams County.

"Her cakes were so beautiful," Ann Emerson remembered.

Anna had a great sense of humor and enjoyed having company for coffee and baked goods. Her daughter, Elaine Dornan who now lives in Sun Lakes, Arizona related that Anna's cooking was dangerous around April 1st because she liked to frost a fancy cake with foam as the base or put wax paper between cookies or pancakes for a special April Fool's surprise.

Very active with her children Anna and Ludvig and their sisters and brothers and families spent time each year fishing at Sweetwater and Green Mountain Dam. Anna was always anxious to catch the first fish, but one-year when she went to Hawaii with her son Bently and wife Sarah, Anna hooked a 783-pound Marlin. She had to have help with that fish.

Anna was an avid gardener who kept her yard filled with tulips, poppies, iris, lilacs, petunias and roses. Her son Kent put a double deck bird feeder on one of the trees near her kitchen window so she could watch the birds and squirrels while drinking her coffee.

Anna bowled on two ladies leagues up to a time when she broke her hip.

Anna Toxvard will be long remembered by the people who knew and loved her. Many young people who were in her 4-H club and had the advantage of learning will never forget her.

A special thanks to Elaine Dornan for sharing the insight into the life of this outstanding mother, Anna Toxvard.