Bernita attended St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota and graduated from Iowa State College with a degree in home economics. She taught high school home economics and worked as a county home extension agent in Minnesota. Bernita served as a parish worker in Lutheran churches in Duluth, Minnesota, Garden Grove, California, and Mankato, Minnesota. She served for 22 years at Navajo Evangelical Lutheran Mission, Rock Point, Arizona, first as cook for the Navajo school children and then as education director for the developing Navajo congregation.

At age 65, Bernita volunteered to work in Papua, New Guinea. For a year she lived on a small island off the coast of Papua, teaching home economics at the Lutheran school there. The following year she returned to Rock Point and worked there until her retirement in 1990.