Elaine was born in Rose, Bingham Co., Idaho, her parent's third child. Her parents lived & worked on a homestead farm in Rose until about 1917. Because their first son became deaf due to measles, her father took a job in the mountains of Idaho for the new Forestry Department. As a Forest Ranger, he wanted to earn money to put his son in the Deaf School of Idaho. Her father, Joel Hiatt, took the family to Warren, Idaho to work. He went back to bring his son to Warren during his son's summer vacation. While back at Warren, his son was killed by a mountain lion. After the death of this son his oldest in 1918, they went to Salem, Utah to visit family as they were expecting their fifth child. They then moved to Forney, Idaho to continue working for the Forestry Department for two more years. Wanting to farm again, they then moved to Aberdeen in 1920. Elaine was graduated from the H.S. in Aberdeen in 1934. Her family moved to Vale, Oregon to homestead. She left Vale to attended the Univ. of Idaho, Southern Branch at Pocatello in 1935. She worked in a cannery with her sister Fern out of Yuba City, California to earn money for school. While staying with relatives in Marysville, Elaine met Frank Gundestrup. She married him in Yuba City in 1936. They bought land in Marysville & made their first home. Their first child was born there in 1938 . They then lived some time at Cordilla. Frank started to work at Mare Island in 1940. They then bought a home in Napa, California in 1944. With Frank she had five children. Elaine & Frank paid for research on the Gundestrup line in Denmark. Elaine liked to write. She wrote & had published the book that is cherished by the Hiatt family called, "Happy Ever After," A Story of the J. W. Hiatt family. She wrote a poem called Myself and Me. The last paragraph of this poem: I want to hold my head erect and earn men's honor and respect. This is what I want to be, self respecting, conscious and free. She, while at Napa, did much charitable work in her Relief Society organization in the LDS church. She also worked at the State Mental hospital there. She always did hold her head high being missed by her family & many friends, when she passed away in Napa in 1975 from cancer being 61 years old.