Download - Trygve and Arda Lovsto Memories 2011
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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
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!
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.
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