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At 11:45 p. m., on November 21, 2008, eternity took my mother, Olga
Anna Strandvold Opfell. At the time she was under hospice care
in a board and care facility at Torrance, California. She had
been there for several weeks, but never showed any signs of pain,
anguish, or agitation. There were times when we thought she
might improve; sometimes persons do leave hospice care alive.
She had struggled valiantly against some seventeen afflictions.
But, she never showed any signs that she was ready to go. Her body
just gave up, but her spirit lives on.
As the hours passed that day, Mom could not eat and became
progressively non-responsive. By the time Dylan, my wife, and I
arrived to see Mom that evening around 7:30 p.m. she was
essentially comatose, or in a very deep slumber. Her pulse was
racing at 132 bpm and her breathing was shallow and quick, so I
was certain it was not a deep sleep. Her body was in distress of
some sort. I had spoken with the hospice nurse, Maria, earier in
the day and she had indicated she told my father it was time to
contact the mortuary. So I knew going in that the end was near.
My mother had severe anemia and my father, Dr. John B. Opfell,
later told me that the reason her heart was beating so fast was
that her blood was too lean in oxygen. Even though she was on
oxygen support at the time, it wasn't enough to save her. Her
time had come.
I will always cherish those last moments I had with my mother. I
recounted for her all the special times in my life she had been
there for me and I expressed how very grateful and fortunate I
was to have such a loving and wonderful person for my mother.
Dylan held her hand all the while. My bother, Jon Guido, was
also there with us. My father, and other brother, Thane, had
been there before we arrived and departed, hoping. I prayed
several times for her to recover from this latest setback but my
ultimate prayer was that if it were God's will that she pass on,
that He take her gently, which He then did.
After we learned of her death, my brother Jon Guido, returned to
the board and care and accompanied Mom on her journey to the
mortuary. She was later interred at
Sunset View
Cemetary near the graves her parents, Georg and Johanne
Strandvold. The graves are in El Cerrito, California,
overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.
Olga was a first generation descendant of Danish immigrants. Her
parents both came to America during the last decade of the 19th
Century and the first decade of the 20th. Olga's father,
Georg
Sophus Strandvold, was a celebrated editor of a
Norwegian-language newspaper and author of poems and news
articles in the Danish language. For over 30 years, he was the
co-editor of the
Decorah
Posten, a prominent Norwegian-language newspaper. For his
contribution to the Danish resistance of German occupation
during the Second World War, George was knight twice by Kings of
Denmark.
Olga's mother, Johanne Petersen Strandvold, was a homemaker and
a centerpiece of the Danish community in Decorah, Iowa, the family
home during Olga's childhood and youth. Johanne's brother,
Hjalmar
Petersen, was the Governor of Minnesota briefly in the
1930's, while Olga (known as "Putte") was a teenager. He was on President
Roosevelt's team. He even had a book published about him by
Garrison Keillor's brother
Steven. Olga was the only child of her parents, but her
family included two half-brothers, Kaj Strandvold and Carl
Strandvold, and two adopoted cousins Kaj and Carl were Georg's
sons from a prior marriage and the cousins were Lauritz Petersen
and Anna Mae Petersen Justin, children of Johanne's brother Aage
Petersen.
Olga was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on October 20, 1919 and spent her first
seven years in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The family then moved
to Decorah when Georg became editor of the Posten. Olga
graduated from Decorah High School, where she was the winner of a
statewide academic competition and was classValedictorian. Then
spent a year in Denmark wiht her mother to become friends with
her many cousins and become more proficient in the Danish
language. Upon returning, she graduated from
Luther College in Decorah
before completing her Master's degree in the prestigious
Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa.
During the remainging War years, she taught English at
Grandview College (now
University) in Des Moines, Iowa.
When the War ended, in 1945 Olga moved to California to start a new life.
She had a bit of an "acting bug". At first, she waited tables in
Laguna Beach. And, then, she accepted a position as society
reporter for the
Pasadena Star News. In this position, she met many of the
rich and famous of Southern California. When offered a position
as Editorial Assistant to the Chairman of the
Deparment of Chemical Engineering at California Institute of
Technology (CalTech) she readily accepted. In this role, she
was active in the Caltech International Students Association,
where she developed friendships with brilliant students from
around the world, several of which became Nobel Prize winners.
It was while working at Cal Tech that Olga met
John B. Opfell, a graduate
student,
and helped him edit over 30 of his graduate papers for
publication in pursuit of his doctorate. Once he got his PhDs,
he proposed. Olga was between suitors at the time and was "so
vulnerable to his entreaty", as he put it. After finishing the
work on his PhD, John tackled the Japanese language, where one
of his classmantes was
Dr. Richard Feynman, who later became a Nobel Prize winner
an is considered one of the Top 10 physicists of all time. On
their first date, John tried to impress Olga by ordering dinner
for them in Japanese at a Japanese restaurant. This ultimatley
led to matrimony on September 10, 1954 in San Marino,
California. Their honeymoon (video) took the newlyweds to La Jolla,
California and La Paz, Baja California.
John got a job with Cutter Laboratories in Berekely, California.
Duing the span of 2 years, 3 sons were born, Christopher Kaj,
and twins
Thane Frederick and Jon Guido (who ultimately grew to 6'7" tall). Olga's parents came to live with
them and they moved into an
Eichler home in Walnut Creek, CA where they stayed until
1960 when John got a career opportunity to sterilize spacecraft
and the family moved to Orange, California.
It was in the City of Orange that Olga truly flourished. She was most
active in various public affairs and wrote and produced several
plays for local children. Immediately after Georg's death in
1960, Olga
took over writing his column "International
News Review" for the Askov American newspaper, which had
been founded by her uncle, Hjalmar Petersen. Olga continued writing the
column until just before she passed, almost 50 years.
For her many contributions, Ogla was twice elected "City of
Orange Woman of the Year" by the local Chamber of Commerce. And
then she was elected "Woman of the Year" by Ford Motor Company's
Aeronutronic Division, where John was employed. During this same
period, Olga was active in the
Los Angeles World Affairs Council International Visitors
Program. Many foreign dignitaries visited the Opfell home for
dinner, as guest of the United States State Deparment. Several
of these visitors became friends and helped Olga with research
on some of her ten books.
After a brief period with a startup company in 1969, John took a
job with Sunkist Growers as Vice President of Marketing. The
family relocated to a new house on Calipatria Drive in
Woodland Hills, California, in what is now a part of the City of
Calabasas where they lived until 198o. It was in Woodland Hills
that Olga took up writing in earnest. She took a course with the
popular author Karen O'Connor and became
"hooked" on writing. Her first book "Prarie
Princess" was a biography of Johanne.
Olga had an enduring love for stray animals. And, there always
seemed to be a new "pet" hanging out in the garage, much to
John's chagrin. There was one stray dog, "Goldie", that Olga got
placed for adoption on a TV show. Goldie had lived a tough life,
but, after being cleaned up and prepped, he appeared on the
show. No dog could have looked finer. He was quickly adopted.
From 1980 to 1983, after their boys were grown and gone, John and
Olga resided in Santa Barbara, California, whhere he worked for
a small defense contractor that closed shop. John then got a job
in the engineering of processes for enriching Uranium in
Torrance, California and so they relocated again and that is where
Olga spent the rest of her life, continuing with
her writing career. After turning 60, Olga publisheed 12
scholarly books. One them, about the translators of the Kings
James Bible is still in
university libraries around the world, including Yale,
Oxford and Cambridge. At the time she became ill, she was
working on an encyclopedia of all of the female rulers
throughout history. The manuscript was almost completed,
however, it was over 1,000 pages.
During the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's, Olga travelled to Europe 4
times to visit her Danish cousins and tour art treasures. One
trip included Israel. Olga was an expert in the fine arts, as
well as music and literature. She knew the exact location of
every famous painting, statue and historical event and
introduced the bookish John to culture.
After Olga
passed, John continued on, with his wedding band
still on
his finger when he passed in June, 2018.
Olga was focused on literature and academic matters
throughout her life. Proper grammar was a particular issue with
her. In the spirit of her academic traditions, now that she has
completed all the courses of motherhood and matriculated
through the University of Life, all I have to say about her can
be summarized in a letter and a symbol: A+.
Written by Chris Opfell:
kajguguy03@aol.com
August 11, 2018
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