Minerva Teichert was born on August 28, 1888, in North Ogden, Utah, and grew up on a ranch in Idaho as the second of nine children. Her father, Frederick John Kohlhepp, was a cultured gentleman who gave up the prosperity of his Boston family to go west in search of adventure. When he found Mary Ella Hickman and the restored gospel, he embraced both. Life on the homestead near Pocatello, Idaho was rich food for Minerva’s taste for drama and romance. Each night her father gathered the children around to read the scriptures or classics of literature. “My parents were dreamers,” she later recalled. “Oh, the fairyland we lived in” (“Miss Kohlhepp’s Own Story,” Pocatello, Idaho, 1917).