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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