ne of the early-day homesteader families in south Anchorage was the family of Engelhard “Ed” K. Sperstad. He was born in Sperstad, Norway in 1884 and immigrated to the United States sometime around the turn of the century. He first arrived in Valdez in 1906, hoping to find employment in the Valdez district gold claims. He spent his prospecting time in and out of Valdez, and while in Valdez he met and married Anna Serina Abrahamson. Anna was born in Valsoy, Norway in 1885 and came to Valdez as a domestic, like many other Scandinavian women who immigrated to the United States at the time. Anna was employed by Judge Thomas Donohoe in Valdez as cook and housekeeper.

Two sons, John A. and Thomas W. were born to the couple while in Valdez, in 1919 and 1920. In 1923 the family decided to head for Anchorage, since it was a booming city presenting many opportunities. The couple filed for a one-hundred-sixty-acre homestead in the area which became Spenard, at the intersection of Arctic Boulevard and International Airport Road. The only access to the homestead at the time was the Alaska Railroad, which intersected their property near Campbell Station. Access by road was a branch off the present-day Spenard Road at Deadman’s Curve. It was a pioneer, non-maintained road with two ruts suitable for wagons in the summer and bobsleds and horses in the winter.

Ed and Anna Sperstad had two more children; daughter Evelyn Ann, born in 1922 and Hope Lucille, born in 1923. In Anchorage, the family lived a subsistence lifestyle, raising vegetables on the homestead, fishing for salmon in Cook Inlet during the summer, picking berries, and hunting moose, rabbit, grouse and ptarmigan. Anna’s expertise at preserving and canning kept the family larder full. It was a long way to school for the children. From the homestead to downtown Anchorage was about four miles, and there were many times that they had to walk all the way to town and back to attend school.

Englehard K. Sperstad died in 1954 and Anna Abrahamson Sperstad died in 1970. Both are buried in Angelus Memorial Park. Their first son, John A., had no children and made his home in Fairbanks. Son Thomas W. had no children and died in 1990 at his hunting camp in the Wrangell Mountains. Daughter Evelyn Ann Watsjold had three children, John Eric, Kim Allen and Dan. Evelyn Ann passed away in 1983, and her ashes were scattered. Daughter Hope Lucille Lowe had four children, Karen Ann Brian, Inez, Nelson and Carl.