Toft's father Thomas was born Thomas Kresten Jensen on June 1, 1844, in
Denmark, one of fourteen children. He, along with two of his brothers, moved to
Racine, Wisconsin, in 1863, where they changed their last names to Toft. The brothers bought a farm in
Minnesota, but Thomas Toft sold his share in 1871 and moved to
Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin. Three years later, he married Julia Anne Panter. and briefly studied nursing at the
Presbyterian Hospital in
Chicago. Upon her father's 1919 death, Toft returned to the land and began a summer resort with her mother and siblings, that they called Toft's Point. Thomas and Julia Toft fought a protracted battle over a disputed border of their property (containing valuable old growth pines) with prominent logger
Moses Kilgore and the subsequent owners of his property. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Tofts in 1926, but the nearly 20 year legal battle was a financial and emotional drain on the family. Emma Toft later refused several offers from developers who wanted to turn the valuable land into a golf development or resort area for the wealthy. Toft was the only one of her siblings to remain unmarried. She told
Norbert Blei that she once had a fiancé from
Rowleys Bay, but that he was killed in
World War I. In 1937, Toft was one of those with Albert Fuller,
Jens Jensen, and Olivia Traven, to establish
The Ridges Sanctuary in Baileys Harbor. In 1964, Door County
naturalist and writer Roy Lukes was hired by The Ridges, where he began a close friendship with Emma until her death. She taught him how to lure
black-capped chickadees and
red-breasted nuthatches by hand. The Toft family sold the resort property to
The Nature Conservancy in 1967, who in turn gave it to the
University of Wisconsin–Green Bay. Toft spent the last several years of her life at the Dorchester Nursing Home in
Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, before dying on February 14, 1982, at the age of 91. == Legacy ==