Afton May Christiansen 1912-1977

Born 27 October, 1912 in Downey, Idaho, to Elnora Christina Jensen and Peter Christiansen
Married Elven Howard Nisson 14 Sep 1934 in Salt Lake
Died 6 December 1977
Buried in Bountiful

1920 Census
1930 Census 

By Vickie Nisson Eastley
May 1980

Afton May Christiansen was born to Peter Christiansen and Elnora Christina Jensen on 27 October, 1912 in Downey, Bannock, Idaho. Her family lived in Idaho while she was growing up. While attending high school in Downey, she met Elven Howard Nisson. He was born to Norman Hans and Anne Marie Olsen Nisson on 8 October 1908, in Preston, Idaho. Mother had been dating many fellows, another one named Howard even, but fortunately, Mother and Dad got together and were married in the Salt Lake Temple on 14 September, 1934. I remember stories of how Uncle Orion teased her and the influence of her two older sisters.

Dad and Mother lived in Downey where Sandra was born on 2 March 1936. Being the firstborn, there are many, many darling pictures of Sandra as a baby! My father worked for Greyhound. They lived in Holladay, Utah where Connie was born on 22 Oct.1941. The family moved to Burley, Idaho where mother was busy in PTA and other community involvement, as well as being busy in the church. She was Primary president until Dad was made the Bishop of the ward. Vickie was born in Burley on 5 March, 1946. It's exciting being little and having your Dad be the Bishop. I well remember times he would go to do some work on the church welfare farm near Jerome and he would take me with him. Mother and Dad belonged to a church study group in Burley and made many very close, warm friendships. I remember a vacation Mother, Sandra, Connie and I went on to San Francisco to visit Aunt Bea and Uncle John. It was the first time I saw the sun set in the ocean!

Our family then moved to Bountiful, Utah. Elven was born shortly thereafter, 5 November, 1954. Dad passed away on 23 Dec 1958. I was too young to realize how hard this must have been on Mother. But to me, she was very strong and had unshakable faith.

Mother was very spontaneous. I remember once she decided we would go to California to visit Sandra. We made the decision and left in only 6 hours. She loved riding. Many, many weekends we would throw a few things in the car and take off. Once, for example, she read in the paper that bear grass was growing in Wyoming. With only a newspaper photo in hand, we set off to find bear grass.

Christmas time was always wonderful at our home! There was a special glow that Mother always brought to that season of the year. Mother was a terrific grandma. Our children have many mementos of trips here and there with Grandma- a rock, a bell, a photo, a ticket stub. But best of all are there fond memories of hearing stories, staying up late, ice cream, candy from her "Grandma Purse," and on and on.

Mother truly loved little children as evidenced by her choice of profession after Dad passed away. She was owner of a day-care center named Kiddieville. She influenced for good the lives of many children and their parents. Although we truly miss our parents, we are happy in the knowledge that they are once again together and are watching over us from heaven.


By Connie Nisson Klock
April 26, 1980

Mother enjoyed Utah. We had a brand new home and lots of good neighbors. I think Mother was a bit awed by the mountain when we first moved to Bountiful but she later loved watching the big mountain behind our home as the seasons changed.

She became a new mother rather late in life and my brother Elven certainly made a change in our household. We were all ecstatic over him.

When Daddy died of cancer when I was 16, Mother herself needed to have a cancerous tumor removed. Her life was very different from then on. She began a nursery school and no one could have asked for a better surrogate mother for a preschooler. There are twenty years worth of children in Bountiful who can thank Mother for their very good start in life. She dearly loved the children and her patience in dealing with them was never ending. Mother was the kind of person who never told a child sharply to leave the room. Instead she would say "shoo chickens." They still left, laughing.

Mother's motto certainly should have been "BRING ME THE CHILDREN."


If you are interested in a .pdf file of Afton's funeral, please send me an email.

Update 10/14/2011
I found this mention of Afton today:

An older couple who lived nearby, Afton Nisson and Howard, got a little boy the same age as Luan. Howard drove Greyhound bus and was gone a lot, and I soon got a job with IHC which took me away. Afton and Margene became the best of friends, so guess how Sally got her middle name in 1960.

And this from the pdf at this link (it's a big file and there's lots of other information there about our ancestors). Nellie Rex Christiansen Christensen was Afton's cousin and these are the parts about Afton from her autobiography:

After we moved to Downey my dearest friend was my half cousin, Afton Christiansen. We were almost inseparable. I remember one time when our whole class planned to runaway on April Fool’s Day. We all started out and when the 9 o’clock bell rang, all the girls except Afton and I, ran back to school. There was a big group of boys and we two girls who stayed away from school as we wandered down to the Cedars, south and east of school. We later had to make up 30 hours of work after school.

When we were in the seventh and eighth grades we had a baseball team of girls. I was pitcher and sometimes catcher. I loved this game. Then in high school we had a girls basketball team and a boys team, no junior varsity. Only a boy’s team and a girl’s team. The girl’s played first, then the boys team.

I remember one time when we were going to Moreland to play basketball, both girls and boys. There were four of us girls riding in a coup Chevrolet that belonged to Milo Christensen (before I really knew him). Ruel his younger brother was driving the car. When we got as far as Arimo, Idaho the car carrying the boys (some of them) broke down. We girls had to give up our ride and let the boys go ahead. My dear cousin, Afton Christiansen, called her father in Downey, who had a new ford car. He came to Arimo and took us girls up to Moreland.

The girls on our team were Gertrude and Gladys Christensen, twins who later became my sisters-in-law. There was also Florence Thomas (later Evans) and me. There were others namely, Beth Sessions, Afton Christiansen and Lucille Sorenson at first. Later others helped, but for the first three years of my high school these were the ones who mostly played. I didn’t go to my senior year of school, so that was the last I played. We had to do all our practicing after school, but we really had so much fun. I’ll never forget these girls.

While in high school I had lots of experiences and fun also. My good friend Afton Christiansen and I had many good times together both in grade school and in high school. We spent most all our spare moments together. Once while still in grade school we decided one night when we were doing our studies together at Afton’s house that we would see if we could stay up all night, as we had never done this before. So we stayed up until 5:00 a.m., then decided that was long enough, so I went home and went to bed. The next day in school I was so sleepy I fell asleep for a few minutes and it frightened me to pieces. I didn’t want to ever do that again.

My first boy friend was Franklin Flint when I was in the seventh grade. Afton’s was Karen Wallace. Then Afton and I became interested in a couple of boys from Swan Lake. They were Howard Nisson and Earl Carlson. We had four big dances in high school; the Freshman Frolic, the Sophomore Hop, the Junior Prom and the Senior Ball. We never lacked for dance partners and always had our cards full the first twenty or twenty five minutes of our dance. We always had our regular Saturday night dances also and danced every dance always.

In the latter part of June 1928 my father took us to Salt Lake to visit with our sister, Myrtle, who had married Earl Jensen the year before on July 1, 1927; and now had a new baby boy. Afton and I wrote to each other while I was in Salt Lake.

When I returned home in August, Afton and I went to a Saturday night dance at Hyde’s Hall the following Saturday. While at the dance a tall good looking young man of 23 years old asked me for a dance; while his friend from Tooele, Utah, Clifford Bennett, asked my friend Afton for a dance. They had heard two other fellows planning to ask us for a dance and to take us home, so they decided to beat their time and ask us first. I did not know this fellow Milo Christensen only by sight as he was some years older than I at 16 years. I had never danced with him before. He was a pretty good dancer. We accepted the invitation to let them take us home. The very next dance our regular fellows asked to take us home. Of course we told them we already had a date with someone else. This was Earl Carlson and Howard Nisson. Several years later Afton did marry Howard Nisson. This date with Milo Christensen began a courtship for us that lasted about 15 months, as we were married on November 23, 1929; in the Logan Courthouse in Logan, Cache County, Utah at ages 24 and 17.

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Here's a slightly different version of Vickie Nisson Eastley's memories above:

Afton was a social person who enjoyed many friends. She had a large circle of friends in school and was student body president in her small high school. She joined with her siblings in keeping things lively at home.

After Afton and Howard married they established many close, warm friendships.

Afton loved serving in the stake and ward Primary. She also enjoyed teaching the deacon-aged boys in Sunday School. She much preferred teaching teenage boys rather than the girls.

Afton was independent. Howard was hesitant to spend money on a family vacation. So Afton got a part-time job, saved all the money and took the three children on the bus with her to visit her sister’s family in San Francisco. Family vacations (including Howard) to lots of different places happened each summer after that.

Moving from friends and experiences in Burley was difficult but she learned to enjoy Utah Afton was a bit awed by the mountains when the family first moved to Bountiful but she later loved watching the big mountain behind their home as the seasons changed

The death of her young husband and her cancer surgery following his death by only a few weeks was a serious challenge to the family. But Afton was very strong and had unshakable faith.

Afton was very spontaneous. For example, once she read in the paper that bear grass was growing in Wyoming. With only a newspaper photo in hand, off went the family to find bear grass. She loved car rides. Many Saturdays were spent joyously exploring or if it was a busy Saturday just a breakfast picnic of cold cereal eaten high on the mountain overlooking the valley.

Christmas time was always wonderful at our home! She brought a special glow to that season of the year.

Afton was the best grandma. Her grandchildren were given many mementos of trips here and there with Grandma- a rock, a bell, a photo, a ticket stub. But best of all are there fond memories of hearing stories, staying up late, ice cream, candy from her "Grandma Purse," and on and on.

Mother truly loved little children as evidenced by her choice of profession after Howard’s death. She was owner of a day-care center. She influenced for good the lives of many children and their parents. She dearly loved the children and her patience in dealing with them was never ending. She helped them have an excellent beginning in life.

Although we truly miss our parents, we are happy in the knowledge that they are once again together and are watching over us from heaven.