Early Life
Knutson was born Cornelia Genevive Gjesdahl in Edmore, Ramsey County, North Dakota.
She grew up on the farm where she was born, and inherited her politics from her father, a Populist who belonged to a socialist organization called the Non-Partisan League.
After growing up and attending Concordia College in nearby Moorhead, Minnesota, Knutson planned on a career in opera and went to New York City to attend the Juilliard School for a year. When she realized she would not make it in opera, she returned to Minnesota, where she married Andy Knutson and moved to his farm near Oklee.
Read more about this topic: Coya Knutson
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)