Coya Knutson

Coya Knutson

Coya Gjesdal Knutson (born August 22, 1912 in Edmore , Ramsey County , North Dakota , †  October 10, 1996 ) was an American politician . Between 1955 and 1959 she represented the state of Minnesota in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Coya Knutson was born as Cornelia Genevive Gjesdal. She attended the public schools of her home country and then until 1934 the Concordia College in Moorhead . She also graduated from State Teachers College there . She also studied at the Julliard School of Music in New York City . At that time she was planning to become an opera singer; but that could not be achieved. After graduation, she worked as a teacher in Penn, North Dakota, and Plummer and Oklee , Minnesota. Between 1948 and 1950 she served on the Red Lake County Welfare Committee .

Politically, Coya Knutson became a member of the Democratic Party , which in Minnesota has been called the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party since a merger in 1944 . In 1948, 1952 and 1956 she was a delegate to the respective Democratic National Conventions . Knutson was a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives from 1951 to 1954 . In 1954 she was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC in the ninth constituency of Minnesota , where she succeeded Harold Hagen on January 3, 1955 . After re-election in 1956, she was able to complete two terms in Congress until January 3, 1959 . There she was a member of the Agriculture Committee.

In 1958 she was not re-elected. This defeat was also the result of an intrigue of her husband Andy Knutson, who publicly urged her to give up her mandate in order to support the family at home. Coya Knutson then divorced. In 1960 she applied unsuccessfully to return to Congress. In the following years she wrote several articles in agricultural magazines and was interested in developing children's programs on television. Between 1961 and 1970 she was the liaison officer between the military and civil defense systems. In 1977 she unsuccessfully sought her party's nomination for a congressional by-election. She died on October 10, 1996.

Web links

• Coya Knutson in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Coya Knutson in the database of Find a Grave (English)