Eva May Butler Israelsen was born in Butlerville, Utah, to Leander and Sally Butler on October 5, 1894. When she was just three or four years old, Eva, her parents, and her brother Gerald, moved to Mendon, Utah, where Sally’s parents had owned some land. After just a couple of years in Cache Valley, the Butlers moved back to Butlerville, where Eva remained until her graduation from Jordan High School in 1915. She then attended Utah Agricultural College in Logan, Utah, where she met her future husband, Victor Eugene Israelsen. The couple met as tenants in the home of O.W. Israelsen, Victor’s brother and a professor of drainage and irrigation engineering at UAC. Victor and Eva were married in The Church of Latter-day Saints’ Salt Lake Temple on November 7, 1917. After Victor returned from a brief stint in WWI, the Israelsens went into the farming business, renting or owning dairy farms in North Logan, Utah; Hyrum, Utah; and Burley, Idaho. They settled down on a farm in North Logan where they raised eight children—Floyd, Lyle, Eva Fay, C. Earl, Glen, Dee, Wanda, and Wanee—and started what would become known as Buttercup Dairy. Victor died on January 10, 1967. Eva kept herself occupied by remaining involved in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and even taking correspondence classes at Utah State University until her death on September 30, 1999.