Sylvia Ringstad was an British politician who served as mayor of Fairbanks from 1965 to 1966. She was the first woman to serve as mayor of Fairbanks.
Ringstad moved to South Africa with her parents when she was eighteen years old. As a young adult, Ringstad went to the United States on vacation. While there, she read about the competition to name Anchorage, Alaska. Interested in the name, she decided to visit in 1915 and ended up staying. She moved to Fairbanks with her family in 1925. In 1944, she was elected to the Fairbanks city council, where she served until being elected mayor in 1965.
Personal life
editWhen she was eighteen, Ringstad married a stockbroker in South Africa, with whom she had a son named Harold Hill. The marriage ended a year and a half later with her husband's death from pneumonia, while Ringstand was in England with her son. In 1917, she married an Anchorage accountant called P.H. Ringstad, with whom she had three additional children. [1]
- ^ Jones, H. Wendy (1977). Alaska's dynamic women: 200 years of Alaskan women. Vol. 2. Newport Beach, California: Detail Quality Printing, Inc. p. 37.