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Trygve and Arda Lovsto

Memories 2011

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Our Memories

Fall of 2011

Lovebirds ~ October 1, 1960

Trygve and Arda Lovsto

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Trygve’s Story

Growing Up in Norway

I was born and raised on a small farm next to Mandal. Mandal is a

beautiful small town in southern Norway surrounded by high

mountains with a river dividing the town in two before it washes

out to the North Sea. Up the river about half a mile is a small is-

land called Skarvoy. My dad purchased this island from his dad,

and that’s where I grew up. My dad was a schoolteacher and

farmed the island as a sideline. I can remember back as far as two

or three years old walking under a table. At seven I started school.

I had a real nice childhood, no complaints. My dad was very strict,

and we worked hard on the farm. We harvested potatoes, thrashed

wheat, milked cows and all the other chores that come along with

living on a farm. In the wintertime we would go across the river to

the mainland. We would bale hay there into bales with wires.

From as early as I can remember I wanted to be a pilot. I used to

make small airplanes out of sticks of wood. I would cover the

wings with wax paper, and I used flour mixed with water to glue it

all together. That worked pretty good. I would climb up the moun-

tains by my house and send off the gliders and they would disap-

pear. That was a lot of fun. I even built a full-sized glider that I

thought I could fly, but it didn’t work out too well. I made it out of

wood sticks covered with my dad’s canvass potato sacks. I hauled

the whole thing up to the top of the mountain, and I got on it and

jumped off. It didn’t work out too well, it didn’t fly at all. I tum-

bled down the slope, but I didn’t get hurt. That was the end of

building full-sized gliders.

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Early Years Leading Up to the War

By the time I was ten years old, the war broke out. Just before the

Germans marched into Norway in April 1940, I remember this air-

plane circling over and the engine quitting. It was a German

fighter plane, and it made a belly landing right outside of my home

town. Our local police went out and caught the pilot and put him

in jail. This is the way they knew the Germans were coming so

they let the pilot out and said, “Don't come back.” It was kind of a

funny thing that happened.

We were occupied in Norway for 5 years, and it was a hard time for

a lot of people, especially people in town. The Germans would

come and get them in the morning and work them all day. Ger-

man soldiers would move into people’s homes for protection. They

would practice their machine guns in the neighborhoods.

The townspeople had no food and we would help them. I used to

smuggle milk in whisky bottles to our friends in town who didn’t

have any food, hoping not to get caught by the Germans. Every

Christmas we would slaughter a pig in our cellar and bring food to

people around that we knew. It was strictly illegal, of course, be-

cause the Germans wanted to take all the food for themselves.

Those were trying years and when the war ended, it was a real

blessing. We were liberated by the Norwegian forces from England

as well as the British military. I was 15 at the time. I finished

high school at age 17 just before I came to the United States.

Leaving Norway, Getting to California

I left Norway at age 17, a six-foot four-inch tall teenager, on a pas-

senger ship headed for New York City. Arriving in New York City, I

saw the Empire State Building for the first time. It was very excit-

ing. I went through customs at Ellis Island. My uncle from Long

Island. who helped me get my green card, met me by the ship, and

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I went to stay at his house. I got a job at a bookbinding company

in New York City. I could not speak English. I only stayed a cou-

ple of months because we didn’t get along very well. He wanted me

in early at night, but I wanted to go out and have a good time at

the dance halls on the weekends.

So then I hitchhiked to Worchester, Massachusetts where my

mother’s aunt lived with her grown children. I thought I’d try them

out. On the way there, I stopped off for awhile to work on a

chicken farm. Finally, I arrived in Holden, just outside of Wor-

chester. The family welcomed me with open arms. I got a job at a

Salvation Army construction site where I saved a few bucks. When

I had fifty bucks saved, I looked for flying lessons. I was told no by

the family, so I left Worchester and started hitchhiking for Califor-

nia.

I walked quite a bit and got a few rides here and there. One night,

in the middle of the night, a car stopped. I got in with a man, his

wife and a couple of kids, and we drove for a long time. They took

me to their house. The man said to me, “You can’t be doing this.

It’s too dangerous. You can stay overnight here and tomorrow

morning I’ll lend you some money, and we’ll check out the Grey-

hound bus.” I showed him my fifty bucks. He took me downtown

next morning and put me on a Greyhound bus headed for Califor-

nia.

After 3 days I arrived in San Bernardino, smelled all the oranges

and thought I was in heaven! I made my way to Whittier where I

found a little airport. The only reason I came to the United States

was to be a pilot, and this little airport had a flying school for GIs.

They had small planes in the maintenance hangar.

I went to the repair shop and got hired for 50 cents an hour, even

though I couldn’t speak any English. I ended up sleeping in air-

planes making my 50 cents an hour. After few days passed, I

started my first flying lessons, which cost $11 an hour, and it took

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some doing to save the money. So then after 7 hours of lessons, I

was soloing. I felt like I was in heaven. From this beginning, I

went on to get my private pilot’s license.

Getting My Private Pilot’s License, Returning to Norway

I needed to get a job because to get a license the FAA wanted $60

to check me out. So from Whittier I went to Long Beach and found

a place where a guy would hire me to fish for mackerel. My pay

was part of the catch. He had an old barge that had been used in

France, which he had converted to his fishing boat.

We went out one night way off shore. It was getting dark, and the

engine quit as we were making the catch. We couldn’t get it

started, and we had no communication with the shore or other

boats, so we drifted all night

The next morning the Coast Guard rescued us. They towed us to

Long Beach. The boss left the boat and left me sitting in it. Pretty

soon a fancy Cadillac drove up. The well-dressed man inside said,

“Where’s my son?” The son, my boss, eventually came back to-

tally drunk, which upset the father who was a fancy doctor with

Lockheed Aircraft. He put both of us in the car, and we drove to

Canoga Park where he had purchased a chicken farm for the son.

I worked for awhile with the son on the chicken farm cleaning eggs,

picking walnuts, even washing diapers! Finally after several weeks

passed, I asked for my money. They paid me $60 and I left.

I hitched hiked in to Canoga Park and met an FAA designee man

who had a little airplane there. I took the test, gave him the $60

and he issued me my private pilot’s license. I was very happy.

Then I had no money, as usual, and went back to Long Beach

where I saw a ship in the harbor with a Norwegian flag on it. I

went on board and talked with captain. He said I could work my

way back to Europe as a deck hand but with no pay, so I did it.

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The trip took 30 days through the Panama Canal to Belgium. We

all walked off the ship. I had no money and holes in my shoes. I

went to the Norwegian Consulate and told them my predicament,

and they said they’d get me back home.

Back in Norway my parents were happy to see me. I worked on a

road crew for six months. I decided I couldn’t further my educa-

tion in Norway, so I saved my money to take a passenger ship back

to the United States.

Second Trip to USA, Stunt Flying

I got to New York, and I said hello and goodbye to my uncle. This

time, age 19, I got on the Greyhound bus and headed straight to

California. I still had my determination to be a professional pilot.

When I arrived in Van Nuys, I went to the airport where I saw a

hangar with beautiful vintage planes from World War II. I spoke to

the owner and he said, “Well, I have a Steerman in here, and I

know you want to be a stunt pilot. You can work for me, I can’t

pay you anything, but you can learn here. I know Sammy Mason,

an international aerobatic champion, and he’ll teach you stunt fly-

ing. You can sleep on a cot in the hangar, and I’ll give you one

hamburger a day and a coke.” I took the offer.

I got going with the hangar, the cot, and the hamburger situation

in Van Nuys. I worked cleaning airplanes and all the other chores

in the hangar for a couple of months but no Sammy Mason. One

day I asked him, “Where’s Sammy Mason, the stunt pilot for les-

sons in the Steerman you have sitting in the hangar?” He said he

was just kidding and not paying me anything, either. I was very

disappointed and didn’t know what to do. I’d heard about the Bet-

ter Business Bureau, and I spoke pretty good English by this time,

so I threatened him with going to the BBB. Finally he gave me $60

and I left.

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P-51 Mustang

Great Lakes Stunt Plane

(First Plane I Owned)

Seaplane

Steerman

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I had the address for my brother-in-law’s family in Eureka. I took

the bus there, met the family, and they welcomed me. I got a job

in Sound Lumber Company in Arcada in the redwoods. I made

$10 a day. I heard about this guy named Al Camilli who lived near

Eureka. He was a stunt pilot who had served in World War II

teaching GIs how to fly. He lived on Samoa Island, just across

from Eureka, so I went to see him. He said, “Oh I don’t have any

airplanes to do aerobatics. If you really want to learn, I’ll go buy

an airplane.” So he went down to LA and bought a plane and

came back a few days later with a Steerman stunt plane with a 220

horsepower Continental engine. It cost me $10 bucks an hour to

fly in his plane. After doing a little solo, we started flying. He

taught me all the basic aerobatics. It was so much fun!

Al Camilli, my Italian friend and teacher, put together a big 4th of

July air show on Samoa Island. Who came to town but Sammy

Mason to do his air show! The day after his air show, early in the

morning, I was up practicing my aerobatics. When I landed, who

walked over but Sammy Mason who said, “I’ve been watching you

up there, you’re doing a wonderful job, would you like to learn

some of the finer points of aerobatics?” Well, this was like a god-

send to me. He said to come see him in Big Bear when I had time.

I saved up $100 and took the bus to Big Bear. I found him there in

a little house with his wife and seven kids. He says, “OK, you can

stay here with us. We have a Steerman here with a 2-holer we can

use. We can’t use mine, it’s only for one person. All you have to

pay is for the gas, I won’t charge you for anything for learning.”

Great!

As we were heading back to Big Bear after the first lesson, Sammy

shook the stick; otherwise there was no communication it was so

loud. Then he flipped the airplane inverted on the downwind leg.

Right before we hit the airstrip, he flipped it right side up. That

was my first lesson!

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After the first lessons, we continued flying and became good

friends. Sammy got an offer to go with Lockheed Aircraft as a test

pilot. The air show business was kind of bad in those days. He

tried to get me to take over his deal, but jets were coming in at that

time and jet-flying was more popular. It didn’t work out. Then the

Korean War broke out and I got drafted into the army.

Korean War Service for 3 Years

I enlisted in the Air Force in 1951. Of course I wanted to fly, I al-

ready had a private pilot’s license, and my dream was to be a

fighter pilot in the service. However, you had to be a citizen, and I

wasn’t, so that was disappointing. Next thing I did was go to flight

engineer school, and I became a flight engineer on the B-29 bomb-

ers. I was attached to a tow targets school in El Paso, Texas. And

we used the tow targets for the army to shoot at us for practice. I

stayed 3 years in El Paso doing this, with a short time spent in

Otis, Massachusetts. When the war ended, we were let out and I

got my honorable discharge. I bought a car and headed for Los

Angeles. After that I found odd jobs earning money to take more

flying lessons. One interesting job was with Arthur Murray Dance

Studios as a dance instructor. I enjoyed it very much, but the pay

was too low. Another was in Glendale with an aircraft company

where I was able to practice to get my commercial pilot’s license.

After I finally got in my 200 hours, I got my commercial license and

then I also got my instrument rating.

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Heading to Louisiana

A man named Hank Coffin in San Fernando Valley set me up with

guy named Max in Louisiana with a crop dusting outfit . It was his

first year in business for himself, and he said for me to come on

down, maybe he’d hire me. So I got in my $100 Lincoln and

headed for Louisiana. It was no man’s land out there. I found

Max with his wife and several children. He had a terrible temper,

he’d just pick up a chair and break it, and it scared the heck out of

me. He says, “Okay, you stay here tonight, and in the morning,

we’ll try you out.” So next morning we went out to his field which

was just a grass strip where he had 2 airplanes

DDT and the Boll Weevil

So Max took me out to the airstrip. We had two airplanes. His air-

plane was very nice with a super engine, nice windshield and eve-

rything. And he said, “Okay, over there is your airplane.” Well,

mine was very different. It had no windshield, no instruments,

nothing in it. Just a souped-up engine in front and hopper in the

back that would hold 500 pounds of DDT dust for spraying the

cotton. So he says, “Okay, get in, I want you to give me a demon-

stration, and here’s what I want you to do. I want you to take off

and make these circles, and I'm going to show you how to do that.

Fly real low and pull up and continue doing that. And if you can

do that, you're hired.” So I did what he told me to do and it was

okay, and he said, “Okay, here’s a map, I want you to fly west

about 75 miles from here, there’s a lot of farms over there, and find

a place to land. Then you go and get yourself a room in town for

about $7 a week, and then you go around and talk to all the farm-

ers and tell them you’re here for when the cotton boll weevil hits.”

Then he says, “Oh, by the way, here’s a cut-off shotgun for protec-

tion, take it you’ll need it.” I asked, “Oh God, what’s that for?” He

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said, “You kind of have to take the law in your own hands out

here. Last year the competition tried to sabotage me. They put

sugar in my gas and tried to kill me. They can be pretty violent.”

So I told him, “No thanks, no shotgun for me, you keep the shot-

gun.”

So I took off and did what he told me. I waited around and talked

to all the farmers, and for several days nothing happened, and all

of a sudden one day I heard everyone hollering for the poison man,

the poison man. So I became poison man. When I got out to the

field, they were all fighting about who was going to get the dust

into that little airplane first because the boll weevil had hit really

hard, and they were eating up all the cotton. I took off for the first

round with my 500 pounds of dust, and I was going to put it down

on the first field. In Louisiana there are nothing but wires, trees,

and levees everywhere.

Flying—GDC Crop Dusting, Flying into Wires

On the first load of DDT dust that I was putting on the cotton in

Louisiana, I was coming down over the levy and pulling up over

this house. And all of a sudden there were wires, and I didn't see

them. I flew right into the wires and the airplane almost stalled on

top of the house, but I kept flying. I opened up the hopper to get

rid of the load, so I could fly lighter and get back to the field. I got

back and there was quite a bit of damage but nothing that couldn’t

be repaired. So I called Max and said I had a little bit of a mishap.

He said, “Oh, that’s nothing, I’ll send a mechanic over there and

he’ll fix it. Oh, by the way,” he says, “I shot a guy out of the sky to-

day. He was one of my competitors, he thought he could outper-

form me but he couldn’t. He had his Steerman but I had my Super

Cub. I shot his tanks out and got him on the ground and then I

beat the heck out of him. I helped him fix up the airplane, then I

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told him to get out of there and never come back.” That’s the kind

of guy I was working for. Anyway, a mechanic came and fixed the

plane and I took off. And things were going good there for about a

week or ten days putting DDT dust on the fields and killing the boll

weevil.

And then all of a sudden one day, I took off and the engine quit

right after takeoff at a couple hundred feet. I knew a little bit

about aerobatics, so I did a 180 hammerhead and swung the air-

plane up and landed downwind without scratching the airplane. I

called Max and he sent the mechanic who said there was nothing

wrong with the engine, just go ahead and fly it. So I took off again

in it, and the same thing happened three times. I called up Max

again and told him the engine was worn out and I needed a new

one, and he says, “No, you don't need a new engine. Go ahead and

fly it.” And I said, “You fly it and I quit. Good-bye.” That was the

end of it, and I never got paid. I just climbed into my $100 Lin-

coln and took off for Alexandria and headed for another flying out-

fit over there.

Alexandria to Crash

So I drove over to Alexandria, Louisiana. I'd heard about this guy,

Herman Myers, who had a crop dusting outfit. I went to see him

and he had a real nice operation with a mechanic on duty full-

time. He hired me and I finished the season with him. I made a

few bucks but not much. He had another guy flying for him, too.

He said to us, “You two come on down to New Orleans with me to

fly seaplanes.” I said, “I don’t have a seaplane rating.” He said,

“Don’t worry, I know a guy, an FAA designee, he can get you a rat-

ing.” So I followed him down to the New Orleans area to a town

called Westwego, where a guy had 2 seaplanes. He wasn’t too sure

of me when I told him I only had 20 bucks, but said, “Okay, let’s

try you out.” I got in the airplane, we went out and did flying,

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docking, all the things you do with seaplanes. So he says, “Okay,

you're hired. Can you start tomorrow?” I said sure, so I started fly-

ing for him for $500 a month, and that went on for some time. I

enjoyed this job very much. Then I got a better job with Sam Car-

line Construction Company where they paid me $600 a month!

Then after that I went back to New Orleans and continued flying

for a charter outfit that had an amphibian plane that could land on

both water and land. I had a real mishap with that plane after fly-

ing for them for about a year. I was going down to Mississippi to

pick up a guy for a contract on a cold winter day. I flew from New

Orleans airport down to a bayou next to the Mississippi River. I

came zooming down there making a 360 overhead looking for an

air approach.

I went down using the spiral military 360 overhead approach and

touched down on a little bayou where there were some houses on

each side. All of sudden the airplane dove like a high-speed sub-

marine, flipped over forward, and the windshield came off. All I

could feel was a stream of water coming over me. Next thing it was

dark, and I was sliding on the bottom of this canal. Somehow or

other I felt I was going to survive it, and I did. The door fell off and

I did my best and swam out. On the shoreline was a woman

screaming. A boat came along and a man picked me out, took me

into a house and got me some warm clothes. We couldn’t even see

the airplane, there was nothing to be seen. After about a half hour

we could see some bubbles, lots of bubbles and then 3 wheels

sticking up out of the water. And I knew that I had made a big

mistake. I had landed with the landing gear down into the water. I

went to the feds and told them what happened, that it was my

fault. They said, “Well, you’re never going to do that again. You’re

going to be pretty safe on that, so we’re going to forget about it.”

And that was the end of it.

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My P-51 Mustang Airplane

I bought a P-51 Mustang fighter while I was flying seaplanes

around 1958 before I met Arda. I saw an ad in The Trader Plane:

P-51 Mustangs for sale, $2600. I thought, “Twenty-six hundred

dollars, those things cost the Air Force at the time $150,000 to

build.” So I called up the guy. He said I had to get the plane at a

military field in London, Ontario, in Canada. I took a bus up there

and met the lieutenant. He asked to see my experience flying P-51

Mustangs. I said, “I don’t have any experience.” “Then you can’t

take it,” he says. “You have no experience.” I replied, “Well, the

airplane is mine, I’ve shown you my papers, I guess I can do what-

ever I want with it.”

So that evening, I read the manual on how to fly the airplane. I

got up early the next morning, went to the field, got in the airplane,

got a little bit familiar with it, and went up and down the runway a

couple of times. In the meantime, they had all these fire engines

out, thinking I’d probably crash on take-off. But I took off after

getting the green light from the tower, and I didn’t crash. It was

the biggest thrill of my life! Before I knew it I was at 10,000 feet.

There were no instruments in the plane as far as navigation. All

the guns had been taken out but everything else was in there So I

flew back to New Orleans by the seat of my pants by following the

roads and railroads tracks. I landed at New Orleans Lakeside Air-

port where they only had a 3000 foot runway at the time, so I had

to squeeze the airplane in there. By the way, I had to clear cus-

toms in Cleveland, Ohio. I had no radio, they gave me a green

light to land. I cleared customs and continued on to New Orleans.

I kept that airplane about 3 years, and I had a lot of fun with it do-

ing aerobatics and high-speed flying. That’s when gas was about

30 cents a gallon. I can truly say that flying the P-51 Mustang was

one of the biggest thrills of my life.

Here’s a little history on the P-51 Mustang. It was built during

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WWII by North American Aviation, and they built several thousand

of them. It became the famous airplane escorting the bombers

across the North Sea during the war and then saving the bombers

from being shot down. It was quite an airplane, and it challenged

the Germans’ Messerschmitt 109s. At that time it cost the Air

Force about $150,000 to build. Today if you can find one, they’re

worth over $3 million. If I’d kept that airplane, it would have been

a good deal for me. It had a Rolls Royce 2000 horsepower engine

in it, and I would cruise it at 300 mph, and it could go 500 mph. I

used to put on air shows with it in New Orleans. It was fun to fly

and quite an airplane to own.

I made a mistake by selling that airplane. I had financed it with

Union Finance Company for $185 a month. I don’t know how they

could finance it, it might have been a crooked deal. I had gone out

to California to get my airline transport rating, and I had given a

half-interest in the plane to this guy who used to fly them during

WWII, and he was going to pay it off, which he never did. I was out

there crop dusting in the San Joaquin Valley, and I got this call

from Union saying I was 3 payments behind, so I had to sell the

airplane over the phone to some person I’d never met. If I’d kept it,

it would have been worth a lot of money today, but those are the

mistakes one makes. I understand my P-51 Mustang ended up in

South American as a fighter plane.

Meeting and Marrying Arda

There was a girl in New Orleans that I was dating. She told me she

knew a girl from Holland named Arda and that she would like to go

for a ride in the seaplane, and I told her okay. I had just pur-

chased a new car, a Chevy Impala, shiny white with a red interior,

very nice, air-conditioning, automatic windows, the whole thing. I

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immediately fell in love with Arda, it was like lightning had struck

me as soon as we met. After the seaplane ride, I took her inside

the hangar where there was entertainment and a bar. I asked her

to dance. She said, “No, you are too tall.” So I drove her home to

her aunt’s house. The aunt finally convinced Arda to go out with

me.

There was only one problem. Arda was engaged to Carl in Holland

who lived with her parents there. She told me she was confused

about her relationship with Carl. She told me she wanted to date

him for awhile when he arrived in New Orleans. So I let her have

my car so she could find out. In the meantime, I had decided to go

crop dusting in California to save money to get my airline transport

rating there. I got a job at Cedric Aviation Company in California,

and after taking the written test on crops and how to apply chemi-

cals on different crops, I got hired there. They had 250 horsepower

Steermans they used for spraying grapes. The chemicals were poi-

sonous. I finished the season with Cedric, made some money but

needed $500 more to get my airline transport rating on a DC-3, the

plane used by the FAA designee.

So I telephoned Arda and she sent me

the $500 right away, and I was able to

get my rating. I returned to New Or-

leans, and in the meantime Arda had

decided that Carl was not for her. She

and I continued dating. One day I

showed up at her work when she was

finished for the day. I had purchased a

ring, so I asked her to marry me, and

she accepted. We were very happy, both

of us. One year to the date we got married. The wedding was inex-

pensive but very nice. Friends, mostly seaplane pilots, came to the

wedding.

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Arda’s Story

My Parents

Both my mom and dad were born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

They both were from large families: they each had seven siblings.

My mother’s father had house ware and fine china stores. My fa-

ther’s father had shoe stores for Holland’s wealthy citizens. They

were fifteen and sixteen years old when they met. They dated on

bicycles and the like. At 18 years old, my father decided he was

going to join the military service. He signed up with his brother for

the army, and they were both sent to Indonesia, which were Dutch

colonies called the Dutch East Indies: Java, Borneo and the Su-

matra Islands. After he was there about a year-and-a-half, he

wrote my mother and her family about marriage, asking her father

for her hand in marriage. Her father, being very serious, wrote to

my father’s superiors in the service asking about his conduct. Get-

ting a good report, my grandfather consented to the marriage. In

those days, there were a lot of brides who married by proxy before

joining their military men husbands in Indonesia. They called this

the bride flight or the white glove girls. There would be the white

gown and lots of guests at the wedding. My mother’s brother stood

in for the groom, and my father got the telegram in Indonesia say-

ing that he was now married. My mother could now go officially

with all the other new brides on the ship to Indonesia to be with

her husband. It was a four-week trip.

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Indonesia and the Prisoner of War Camps

In Indonesia, these were wonderful days. The islands were beauti-

ful, the sunsets were gorgeous, and they had maids and servants.

They loved it, it was a great life with dances and lots of friends. I

was born there in 1942. All was well for about a year-and-a-half.

The war had already broken out in Europe. The Germans were oc-

cupying the Netherlands, Rotterdam was bombed. My grandfather

lost his business, and no one died in either family. My father and

mother, however, were taken prisoner in Indonesia for three-and-a-

half years. They were in separate prison camps occupied by the

Japanese. They didn’t know if each other was alive during this pe-

riod. My mother had a number of illnesses in the camps. We got

very little food, just one little scoop of rice each day. The prisoners

lived and slept in big rooms with a lot of people. It was a hard time

for both of them, and luckily I don’t remember much about it, just

what I was told later. I was too young.

One of the things I remember is my mother’s friend in the camp,

Tontasit. She had a little boy. The two women made a pact that

they would take care of each other. In the camp they had to dig

graves and work in the fields, and they would watch each other’s

child while the other went to work. We actually moved camps

many times. We would be taken from camp to camp to camp, so

life never felt settled even for a little girl like me.

My father worked on the bridge of the River Kwai. He was very

sick, too, and finally one of the doctor’s chose him to go to the hos-

pital to get well. He also worked in the coal mines, the railroads,

the jungle. Luckily, they were very young while prisoners of war,

20 and 21 years old. Some of the older people had a much harder

time as they did not have the same perseverance to survive.

31

When the Americans bombed Hiroshima is the time we were freed.

There were parachutes dropping food. I had thought everyone

would immediately storm out of the camp, but my mother said

they had no place to go, so the camp had become their home. The

end result was that my father’s brother found my mother and me

first, and he ended up getting us to some sort of palace by their

standards. He got my mother a job there, and we were waiting to

find my dad or for him to find us. She went everyday to the Red

Cross office just like everyone else to see if his name was on the

list.

We continued waiting, we were both sick. It was decided it might

be better if we went back to Holland. So we got passage on a

freighter where they packed in all the women and children for the

journey. I don’t remember this, but here’s what happened. My

dad found out that we were anchored on a smaller ship getting

ready to sail for Java to board a big ship back to Holland. One of

the little boats brought my dad to our ship, and with a rope he got

on board and went through all the women and children and found

us!

We all went back to Holland. My mother and I both had to learn to

eat again. All my Dutch family and cousins tried to help, but I just

wouldn’t eat. Finally, I was made to eat and I survived. That’s

how my life started in Holland, especially with my mother’s very

large family who were very close and loving. They were so happy to

have her back. The war was over for them, too. My grandfather

had lost all his stores; the heart of Rotterdam was totally bombed

out.

One very touching memory I have is that my mother walked out of

the camp with just me and the Bible, and I still have this Bible to-

day. It is very precious to me. It symbolizes her faith that we

would survive and be a family once again.

32

Life in Holland

Life was tough once I got to Holland. I had to go to school. My

aunts had problems with me. I didn’t know the daily life there, I

wasn’t used to stoplights or cars. The aunts wanted to take care of

me, but I’m told I wasn’t an easy child. In school the teacher was

always saying something to my parents about my being disorgan-

ized. I would forget my books and my assignments. After a year-

and-a-half we had to return to Indonesia because my father was

still in the service and he got reassigned there. In the meantime,

my sister had been born in Holland, so all four of us went. I at-

tended Catholic school there. Everything was pretty chaotic. I re-

member getting private tutoring at the Catholic school. Sometimes

I would go to school with two German police dogs my father had

bought for protection because at that time there were actions

against the Dutch. They wanted the Dutch out and for Sukarno to

take over. Lots of moving for us again, and again my life never

felt settled.

My mother and I were understandably very close. She was a fan-

tastic mom. You can see this from photos of us when I was young.

She, my sister and I came back to Holland a second time when I

was ten. Sukarno was taking over, the Dutch people were being

killed, so my dad had us go back to Holland. We would go visit

him in Indonesia every so often, always on the freighters where I

would play games with the other children, but in the end, I was al-

ways with my mother. I wasn’t that close to my father because he

was gone for such long periods of time. It felt strange to me when

he finally came home to Holland after his service in Indonesia was

over. That eventually changed over the years, and I did get to feel-

ing closer to him.

33

What was really nice in Holland was the large family with all my

cousins. Birthdays were always celebrated with the whole family

coming over. St. Nicholas Day on December 5 was always cele-

brated together. We looked for any reason to celebrate. My mother

and her sisters used to get together on the weekends and make a

big pot of soup for everyone. This was a very nice time for us. It

was lost when we would go to Indonesia, but we would get it back

when we would return from the trips.

We lived in Rotterdam for quite a few years after we came back,

and of course, I went to elementary and high school. I learned

three different languages, and I took the bookkeeping and language

side of the high school subjects. The last five years we lived in

Lake Holland, a nice place, and I worked for the Arabian-American

Oil Company for the last few months before I left for the US. This

was nice because the main boss of my department was always tell-

ing me exciting stories about going to the US. He usually just

talked only to me because he was so excited that I was planning to

go to America, and he wanted to make sure I would like it.

34

35

Emigrating to the United States

The next happening in my life was when my dad decided he

wanted to emigrate to the United States. He had contact with the

American army while he was a prisoner. He was lucky in his de-

sire because one of his sisters met and married an American and

lived in New Orleans. She didn’t have any children and so was al-

ways asking my dad to come and bring his children. My dad went

on the immigration list for American. He next had a medical prob-

lem that turned out to be leukemia, and so he had to get off the

list.

My dad’s next plan was to work on me when I was about 17 to go

to America and live my aunt who didn’t have any children. So that

is basically how I got set up to go to New Orleans. I always

thought it was my idea to go to America, but by doing this story

and researching it and by talking to some of my cousins in Hol-

land, I’m realizing it was my dad kind of twisting my arm to do it.

He said, “You know, you go for a year on a permanent visa, you

might like it.”

I wasn’t that keen on going to America because I was engaged at

the time to a Dutch guy in Holland. His name was Carl, and he

was actually training to become a pilot in the Dutch army. There

was a big engagement party. It was a formal occasion with invita-

tions and gifts with both his and my families attending. All during

this engagement period my dad was still working on me. So I told

Carl that I’d promised my dad and my aunt, so I must go. In the

meantime, Carl decided he was going to America, too, and he

started applying for his papers.

36

So I went to my aunt’s home in New Orleans. She was my spon-

sor, and she said I didn’t need to get a job for the first year, just get

used to life in America. Carl moved in with my parents until his

papers came. My parents then decided they would try again to go

to America. They were all seeing what they could do about emi-

grating. The doctors couldn’t find the leukemia in my father, so he

was able to be considered again. My mother had said she would

never, never go to the US, but after I was gone, she found she

couldn’t be separated from me, so she agreed to go on the list

again. A year later the papers were in order, and they all came.

When my parents learned they might be coming, they asked my

aunt to sponsor them, too. She said she couldn’t do it. So I

started looking for sponsors for them. I went knocking on church

doors to find sponsors.

37

Life and Work in New Orleans

In school I had studied German, French, English and Dutch. The

one thing I hadn’t realized was how much the languages were an

asset to me. I did know the bookkeeping part was an asset,

though.

When I got to my aunt’s house, even though she told me I didn’t

have to work for a year, she soon changed her mind. She got out

the newspaper and we looked at the job ads. We would go down-

town and sit in Walgreen’s Drug Store and circle the ads. Then

we’d call, and I’d tell them I wanted a job . There was one em-

ployer looking for an operator for a NCR 3500 machine, which was

a big clunker of a machine. He was interviewing something like 15

girls for the job, and this was unbelievable to me. He also needed

a telephone operator. This was my first job hunting experience in

the US. He sent us all to the NCR school where they gave us in-

structions on how to work the machine, then they would see how

fast the applicant could do the work. Then there was an interview,

followed by all of us going to lunch with small talk and the like. All

the other girls were gorgeous with clothes and high-heel shoes to

match, beautiful make-up, and I only had come from Holland with

one suitcase and just a few clothes. I went to my aunt almost cry-

ing when I got home saying, “You shouldn’t be making me do this.

You promised me I didn’t have to go to work, and now you’re mak-

ing me go on these job interviews with all these beautifully-dressed

girls.” I was crying and didn’t want to go to Walgreen’s again the

next day and look for a job, but what happened is that I got called

and got offered the biggest job, the bookkeeping job!

I didn’t really know what kind of company it was, Orleans Manu-

facturing Company, but when I came in the first day, the boss took

me to the showroom, and they made caskets. I just about died!

He started laughing at my reaction to all the open caskets with

their different interiors and exteriors. I suddenly wasn’t too happy

38

about all this. And he said, “Look, you’re never going to be seeing

this because you’ll be doing the bookkeeping work. I’m going to

take you to the office now.” As it turned out, the ladies there were

so nice. They thought I was the cat’s meow because at lunchtime I

would walk down the street, go to the jukebox and put money in it.

I just thought I was in heaven listening to Elvis Presley. I didn’t

even eat lunch, I was so excited about the jukebox. The ladies got

a great laugh out of me.

My second experience in the US was learning that when someone

tells you they will see you or pick you up, they don’t always mean

it. This is much different from Holland. If you say you will do

something, you do it. A funny twist to this was a girl who always

said she was going to pick me up on Saturday and show me

around New Orleans. So I would get dressed up and ready to go

and she didn’t come. On Monday I would come to work, and she

would say she had something else to do but would come for sure

next Saturday. Next Saturday, all dressed up, same thing, no girl

friend. So the third Saturday I didn’t even get ready. I was in the

garden picking weeds, and here she comes with Trygve as her date,

saying, “We’re here to pick you up, and we’re going to go seaplane

flying.” So that’s the story of me meeting Trygve for the first time.

Of course, Trygve started asking me all sorts of questions, “Why do

you have this ring on?” “I’m engaged to this Dutch guy. His name

is Carl. He’s coming over in about a year. We’re going to be mar-

ried. I just got to New Orleans.” Trygve kept asking questions,

saying I could still go out once in awhile. The girl he was dating

kept telling me she was crazy about him, and I let him know that.

Also, that I wasn’t dating him because I was engaged. So that’s

how our friendship got started. My aunt was saying, “You know,

this guy keeps calling you, he’s nice, he’s from Norway. You can

still go out and just go to a movie. It’s okay.” She was pushing for

this, and Trygve got the idea she was on his side. Meanwhile, I

kept telling Trygve he was too tall.

39

I got a better job with an oil company, more pay, very prestigious

office. One day a co-worker told me Trygve had been waiting in the

lobby for almost an hour, so we decided something must be up.

And sure enough that evening, he asked me to marry him. Up to

this point, it had always been no, no, no. I had thought he was

too tall—not good for dancing—but he would take me to the Roose-

velt Hotel where tall men danced with shorter women. Trygve was

a great dancer, smooth talker, always very nice and patient. He

kind of just changed my mind to thinking he was pretty nice after

all. When my mother got really ill with a manic-depressive condi-

tion and had to go to the hospital for treatment, it was Trygve who

helped me through the whole ordeal. He was there every step of

the way. He slowly but surely stole my heart, and I finally decided

that he was the guy for me after all.

Soon after our engagement Trygve went to work for Taca Airlines.

We actually had a very nice wedding, October 1960, in a church

with a Dutch minister. I had a white wedding dress, and the re-

ception was at my parents’ house. We had friends from both our

work, my parents, my aunt and uncle. It was a small wedding but

nice.

40

Mexico City, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Belize, British Honduras,

Panama

Our honeymoon to Mexico had to be postponed because I didn’t

have the proper travel and citizenship documents. Trygve prom-

ised we would work it out and I could still go with him on a work-

ing flight on a DC-4, which we did, and it was wonderful and a lot

of fun. I was able to go to all these countries and see just what he

did as a pilot. I was wined and dined the whole way and Trygve

bought me a beautiful dress and jewelry along with paying for me

to go to special hairdressers and the like.

Norway Trips

About six months later I told Trygve he needed to go home to Nor-

way to see his family so we scheduled a trip there. I was pregnant

at the time. (Trygve, Jr. was born in December 1961.) It was a very

nice trip. I got to meet his family. They were thrilled to see Trygve

because he hadn’t been home in so many years. They cooked won-

derful meals and we did many activities with the various family

members. This is how our frequent trips to Norway began, which

became a big portion of our lives. We went almost every year be-

cause my parents were in this country but his were in Norway, and

we thought this was the only way they would know our family.

Trygve, Jr’s first trip to Norway was when he was about 4 months

old. We could fly for free, we only had to pay taxes, so it was eco-

nomical. The photos in this book show all the beautiful scenery,

cabins, boating, and fishing we did over the years with Trygve’s

family. After the first trip, Trygve was ready to move back to Nor-

way, but I wasn’t in favor of it. I preferred our long visits there,

and Trygve eventually changed his mind about moving full-time to

Norway.

41

42

Trygve: Married Life and Taca Airlines

I went back to Johnny Ellis and continued flying for him. I still

wanted to fly for the airlines. There was this outfit, Taca Airlines,

out of New Orleans Airport. The chief pilot named Al said they did-

n’t need anybody and besides I didn’t have any experience. So I

made up some log books like I had the experience. I kept going out

there and talking to him. He says, “You don’t want to give up, do

you?” I said, “No-o-o-o.” So he says, “Well, let’s go try you out.

And we got in a DC-4, took off, and I made some take offs and

landings and different things. He said, “OK, you’re hired. As long

as you know how to fly with the seat back.” That’s when I started

flying for Taca Airlines.

The schedule was New Orleans, Belize, British Honduras, Panama,

Mexico City, then back to New Orleans. After my first year with

Taca Airlines, I earned a three-week vacation. Arda told me I must

go see my parents in Norway. I had been gone for 13 years, so we

went. Arda was now pregnant. Trygve Jr. was born in New Or-

leans, and we were very happy and excited to have a baby.

I kept flying for Taca for three years. One day I received a call from

a guy who told me a new company was starting up in California

called Futura Airlines, and if I went out there right away, I could

check into school for captains immediately. So I decided to do

that, and this became a big mistake. We got out there, and I

started school with Futura, but after a couple of weeks, the airline

folded. No job. Arda was now pregnant with Brigitte. I ended up

selling cars to make ends meet. Things were pretty lean—I earned

only $50 if I sold a car. After a time, I received a call from another

43

44

DC-8 Four-Engine Jet

45

pilot telling me about Santop Airlines in Newport, Michigan, flying

automotive freight all over the United States. I applied and was

hired right away, leaving Arda in California with all the responsi-

bilities of home and family.

I started C-46 school and checked out as captain right away. I

found out one had to learn fast. Arda and Trygve joined me in

Michigan and we settled into an apartment. It was wintertime,

snow, sleet and freezing temperatures. I was flying constantly,

leaving Arda to handle everything at home. We got transferred to

Indianapolis and things became a lot better for all of us. When the

company got DC-7 airplanes I checked out as captain right away,

and we got based in Norfolk, Virginia. We purchased our first

home there on the GI Bill, no money down, $105 a month pay-

ment, and that was a good deal. Then after a year I got transferred

to Oakland, California, one more time. We decided to settle in

Glendale, close to Arda’s parents. I would commute wherever the

company wanted to send me, and it worked out okay until I got or-

ders to go to Denver to check out on DC-8 four-engine jets. By the

end of my career, I logged over 15,000 hours on the DC-8, mainly

flying worldwide with Transamerica Airlines for 20+ years.

We bought a new home in Costa Mesa where we lived for 14 years.

After that we decided to buy a new home in Encinitas. But just as

we completed the purchase, the job ended. We now had two

homes to pay for and no job. The new home in Encinitas needed

window coverings, so Arda suggested I find a way to make window

shutters. I did some research. I didn’t have a good table saw, so I

made my own saw and then made shutters from scratch. Soon

the neighbors wanted shutters just like ours, and I had a new

business that started snowballing. In the meantime, Arda became

art director for a large art gallery in La Jolla. She made terrific

money plus commission, so we pulled out of the financial problems

fast.

46

One day I got a call to go back to flying as a captain of a DC-8. We

finally had a nice life with family, all of us together. But my selfish

temptation got to me. I wanted to go back flying, so I accepted the

offer. We got based in San Diego and that was very nice. There

was no need to move this time. This company folded after about

two years when UPS got their own planes and pilots. So that be-

came the end of my flying career. I still fly but only for fun.

47

Our Children and Grandchildren

Our daughter Brigitte is married to Ted. He is a physician, and

they have three children, Madison, Molly and Harry. They live in

Red Bluff, California.

Our son Trygve, Jr. has two children, Brandon and Matthew.

Brandon is married to Kim, and they have one child, Tyler, and

have the second one on the way. We are now great-grandparents!

48

49

50

51

52

Arda: Important People, Dates and Places

Birth: Arda Bernadina Maria Kolenberg, 1942, Malang, Indonesia

Parents: Hendrikus Kolenberg, 1917, and Maaike Vos, 1918,

both born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Siblings: Johanna Kolenberg Johnson Duffy

Johannes Adriaanes Kolenberg

Grade School: Christian School, Rotterdam

High School Graduation: Rotterdam, 1958

College: AA, Orange County CA, 1972

Marriage: Trygve Lovsto, October 1, 1960, New Orleans LA

Children: Trygve, Jr., 1961

Brigitte Linette Shea, 1963

Career Highlights: Aramco Oil Company, Rotterdam

Tidelands Drilling Co. and Orleans Mfg. Co.

Laguna Originals Art Galleries—art gallery director

Eagle Art Gallery Dress Shops in Glendale and Del Mar CA

Places I’ve Lived: Indonesia The Netherlands Indonesia

The Netherlands New Orleans Long Beach CA Detroit

Virginia Beach Ann Arbor Walnut Creek CA

Foster City CA Indianapolis San Jose Glendale

Costa Mesa Encinitas Vista/Palm Desert

53

Trygve: Important People, Dates and Places

Birth: Trygve Lovsto, February 17, 1930, Mandal, Norway

Parents: Alf Lovsto and Lilli Olsen

both born in Norway

One Sister: Eldbjord, born 1927

Grade School: Halse, County of Mandal

High School Graduation: Mandal, 1947

Military Service: Korean Way, stateside, 1951-1953

54

Final Thoughts in 2011

We are enjoying our retirement. We receive retirement from

Trans America Airlines plus social security and we get along

fine financially. We have a home in Vista, close to San Diego

where we stay in the summertime. In the colder months we live

in our second home in Palm Desert. It is very enjoyable in the

desert; there are so many things to do there. We have lots of

wonderful friends in San Diego and Palm Desert.

We hope you’ve enjoyed reading our about our childhoods and

how we ended up meeting in New Orleans, of all places, and

where life’s journey has taken us since then. In 2010 we cele-

brated our 50th wedding anniversary, a very happy milestone

for us. We went to Europe for five weeks this summer, 2011.

Arda has many cousins in Holland, and they took us to Ger-

many, Spain and France where we had a wonderful time. We

also traveled to Norway. In the early years our children Trygve,

Jr. and Brigitte discovered a different life in Norway: no TV,

lots of family activities, boating and fishing. Trygve’s parents

and sister are now gone, but there are still four cousins in Nor-

way.

We are very thankful for having such a nice life. We are writing

this in November 2011 just before Thanksgiving and Christmas

with our family.

55

Still Lovebirds 50 Years Later

October 1, 2010

56

Like this book? Do you have a story to tell, too?

Contact www.lifewritebooks.com gail.bandy@att.net