WOMEN: Lavina's Harvest

"I wouldn't want a life free of adversity," said Mrs. Lavina Christensen Fugal. "Our troubles are what make us strong." For Lavina, trouble and adversity have been lifelong companions. As a young girl she wanted more than anything to go to college. But when she won a scholarship to the University of Utah, she could not accept it. Her parents, Danish immigrants, did not have the money to buy her clothes.

As a young married woman in Pleasant Grove, Utah, Lavina and her husband Jens Peter had plenty of trouble to make them strong. When her children were babies, Lavina carried...