Happy Birthday Dad!

The following post was written by Ron Osterberg. His grandmother, and Brun's mother was Ida Ekquist Osterberg. Ida was Grandma Teckla's sister, and I knew her as "Aunt Ida" and she lived in Aurora, Wisconsin when I was a child, and we visited her often.

Brun Osterberg

Back row: Brun and Marge
Middle from left to right: Ron, Bruce and Sally
Front: Kenneth with neighbor dog
about 1944

Brun H. Osterberg
May 18, 1907 – October 4, 1958

        Brun took life seriously.  Yet, childhood friends in northern Wisconsin remembered him as playful and funny.  He was a hard working loyal family man.  Yet, friends remembered that he often drank too much and deprived his family.

        He was a man of many contradictions and his character had many facets.  That’s why pinning down his essence is difficult.  However, those who knew him agree that “cynical” is an apt one word description.

        Our father judged the world harshly, especially politicians and the wealthy.  Like his father, he admired Eugene Debs, the long time socialist leader.  At the core of his political belief was fairness and the notion that socialists were best able to create a fair system.  Though he voted for FDR, he preferred the socialists.

        Brun left home when he was 14 years old and worked as a lumberjack in Hurley, Wisconsin before bumming around the country and the world.  He talked about riding under and between railroad cars.

        He eventually became a merchant marine and identified himself that way for rest of his life.  He crossed the equator four times, went through the Panama Canal and spent time in European and Asian seaports.  He was a good sailor, but he often missed his ship when it sailed.  That meant that he worked mainly on ships others avoided.

        While a merchant marine, he took taxidermy as a hobby and grabbed an albatross to stuff.  Bad move for two reasons.  First, the bird pecked his finger leaving a bad gash.  The ship’s medic soaked it in iodine that was too strong and it dissolved the tip of his finger.  The missing eighth of an inch with the fingernail bending over the end fascinated his children.

        Second, seamen thought that harming an albatross was bad luck.  Shortly after the albatross encounter, the ship caught a hurricane.  Thinking that they were sinking, the captain called the crew together for a group prayer.  When the crew was assembled, a shipmate wondered aloud if the storm, which he said Osterberg caused, would go away if they threw him overboard.

        While hitchhiking to a ship’s job at a mid Atlantic seaport, a car struck and dragged him several hundred feet.  People thought him dead and wired his parents for burying money.  He survived the accident and used the money for bus fare home which was then in Kenosha, Wisconsin.  In the family house were his parents, two older brothers, Rudd and Ben, one younger brother, Wes, and three younger sisters, Evelyn, Eileen and Rhoda.

        Brun married Marge Hansen in 1932 and they had four children, Sally, Ron, Bruce and Kenneth.  They divorced in 1946 and he went to San Diego.  There he married Marge Woodhouse in 1951 and had four daughters, Patricia, Lynn, Wendy, and Jill.  He had a heart attack in 1956 and a car smashed him in 1957.  Later that year, doctors told him that he had colon cancer which killed him within a year.

        He was good at many things and relaxing was not among them.  In Wisconsin he worked in the garden after coming home from his job at Nash Motors.  He ate dinner and chatted briefly with Marge before descending to his workshop in the basement.  When the weather didn’t allow gardening, he went straight to the workshop after coming home.  When he did relax, he listened to the radio.  He and Marge were friends with four couples with whom they exchanged visits.

        Our father was five feet ten and weighed 170 pounds.  His hips were so small that for many years Marge Hansen bought his shorts in the boy’s department.

        Brun was a true do it yourselfer.  He fixed everything, including cars, and he never called a repairman.  As a skilled tool and dye maker, he made openers that cut through steel cans like a hot knife through butter.

        While talking with him a few weeks before he died, our father became introspective and said softly, “If I had it to do all over again, I’d.....”  He paused, searching for the right way to phrase his last thoughts.  After several seconds, he blurted out in his old pre-illness voice, “Ah shit; I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing.”

Happy Birthday Dad!