 Born the daughter of a physician and a peasant woman in Karlskrona and brought up in Växjö (Sweden), she was bed-ridden owing to illness up to her twelfth year.It was only after that, from about 1897, that she started to frequent various private schools in Växjö.In 1903, she went to Hildesheim (Germany) and shortly afterwards to Braunschweig (Germany) in order to learn the German language.