Birgitta Ström, our beloved member of Church of Sweden, and Swedish Women’s Educational Association (SWEA), San Francisco/Bay Area, died July 1, after a long period of declining health, She is survived by her husband Ulf, diploma engineer from Helsinki Technical Institute, and their two children Susanne and Peter and their families. Ulf was the Treasurer of Church of Sweden, San Francisco for many years during the years when Siri Eliasson, our previous Honorary Consul General of Sweden was involved.
Birgitta and Ulf were both born into Swedish speaking families, a minority in the bilingual Finland. She was born in Abo in the Southwest corner of Finland. the daughter of Lars Mangs, a Sea Captain of cargo ships, and Runa, a nurse. Birgitta followed the path of her mother and graduated as an RN from a nursing school in Helsinki in early 1966, and then started working there as an operating room nurse. Birgitta had a two-year older brother Christer Mangs. The family was related to the well-known Scandinavian evangelist Frank Mangs, whom I heard preaching at an ecumenical service in Karlstad Cathedral in 1973.
Knowing of Ulf and Birgitta’s deep passion for Music I had many questions to ask Ulf. 1979 was the year they joined Zaida Singers, soon after the final move to the US.
Where and when did you meet Birgitta and when did you get married?
During my 11-month military training I visited my sister who was studying in Åbo (Turku) and was Birgitta’s friend. When leaving a party Birgitta saw me tying my sisters’ shoes, which she thought was so sweet that she later told her mother “ I’m going to marry that guy”. My sister married in early December 1965 and invited Birgitta to the wedding, and we became an item. We got engaged and married in early 1967. We moved into an apartment in Helsinki. Our daughter Susanne was born there in the fall.
I graduated in the spring and worked at a mining company that year. We moved to my hometown in early 1968, a small mill town Varkaus in the middle of Finland, where I got a job as an automation engineer at a paper mill.
Birgitta, with her personality, quickly made many friends, friendships that have remained all these years.
When did you first come to Silicon Valley?
In the summer of 1970, I was awarded a scholarship to study at Stanford from the America-Finland-Loan-Fund. Finland was the only country that repaid its loan to the US after World WAR I . The US had put this money into a fund that was used for education exchange.
The Paper mill I worked with in Finland had purchased a control system from a Cupertino company, Measurex, and the founder and his family embraced us and became our good friend.
After graduating we ventured to drive from Stanford to New York in two weeks with backseat filled toys for the kids visiting national parks, Eisenhower’s home in Pennsylvania, and many other places worth visiting. Susanne had a requirement for motels to have a pool. It was an exciting trip for all of us. Our favorite song was “on the road again” which we sung every time we started for a new segment.
And then you moved back in Finland..!
The company had many papermills and other factories and my job now required significantly more travel, Our friends started to move away from our town for bigger opportunities, so we decided to move to Helsinki where the company’s headquarters were located. It was also closer to the company’s new automation projects in Finland and Italy and Germany as well as our siblings, parents, and cousins. Birgitta cousin, her best friend like her “little sister” through life had also moved there. The area also had Swedish speaking schools for our kids. And her parents’ summer house in the archipelago was now much closer and had space for our family.
Birgitta now also had the opportunity to return to nursing on an on-call basis. She also had many friends that were nurses, and she was good at convincing friends and other available nurses to be available for on-call, so her job was changed to being recruiter. She could now work from home. If she didn’t find one, she would go herself. She also travelled each year for a month with her mother to Stockholm to work in hospitals and hospices, often better paid night shifts. The kids became my responsibility.
What made you Move to the US in 1979? How did you find work, music, and spiritual nourishment?
Two weeks after Peter was born Birgitta was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis it was very painful … she would have almost weekly bouts of swelling .. we noticed when we were in California that the bouts would subside. She was advised by her doctor that she should move to a dryer place , his suggestion was the high plains of Spain. We asked how about California. and he agreed that it would work too. However, our agreement in the stipend was that we should return to Finland for at last 8 years.
When we got an offer from our friend, the president of Measurex, to work for them and the eight years had passed. We decided YES.
We arrived here July 2 1979, first living in a condo near Mesurex until we could move into a house in Cupertino that I had been able to purchase with the bank guarantee signed by the company.. We lived there for 2 years and then upgraded to a house in Saratoga.
As usual Birgitta very soon made a lot of friends among neighbors and from the Swedish American community as well in several women’s organization that she enrolled, and after starting to work here among colleagues … She was very much liked, with her empathy, her wit, her courage, her intelligence, and her graciousness
We both joined, a local Swedish chorus (Zaida Singers) and we founded the San Francisco Swedish chorus, where we hired a trained director from the San Fransico community college .
The kids quickly befriended their neighbors’ kids, of which there many on the Amapola Dr. where our first home was. Susanne had learnt English during our Stanford year when she was 4 years old and picked it up again within a few months when she was 11 and was so confident that she actually began teaching English to a Finnish girl who had just moved here with her family.
Tell us more about Birgitta’s creativity and Professional Life in California
Birgitta stopped her nursing career never enrolling in a required California college level program, she had kids to rear.
She ran knitting courses at De Anza college for a couple of years. She also started a company to help Finnish companies establishing themself in California including helping their staff’s wives to settle here. She managed VistaCom a Finnish company a visual conference hardware supplier, at a time when few such suppliers existed even in the US.
From there she moved to help me at my company formally as a temporary assistant while her main tasks were to mediate some personnel problems using her very good people skills.
Once in California Birgitta’s arthritis subsided with only a few bouts a year until the late 1990’s
She then joined The Nokia Company as an executive assistant that had a research department in Mountain view. She was also trained to be an SAS specialist and trainer, regularly travelling to all Nokia offices in the US.
As I told earlier her arthritis had returned and got worse with time. Finally, her doctor suggested that she should retire, which she did in 1998. In her retirement party her boss referred to her people skills as follows.: “Dear Birgitta I am going to miss you very much, you have been the glue of our department You have lighted up the mood and spirit here, and we all love you”.
When did you finally retire?
In planning for retirement, we purchased an apartment in Helsinki in 2001. In late 2007 Birgitta travelled one month ahead of my retirement on November 1 to furnish and upgrade the apartment. We now have a nicely furnished one bedroom in Helsinki . Our plan was to stay there until mid-June. The reasons for the selected time period were that winter is dry which is good for arthritis, and I myself like cross-country skiing in the forest. We joined a local Choir, hooked up with all our old friends, joined their dinner club, visited our families including Ulf’s 90+ year old mother, and reacquainted us with the places we used to roam around 40 years earlier. From Helsinki it was also easy to visit other parts of Europe, which we didn’t have much opportunity to do during our working life. With good friends we enjoyed the vistas and history of Estonia, Sweden, Italy, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, and even Leningrad in Russia. Birgitta loved it all.
The Pandemic
We arrived in Finland as usual in early January 2020. Our choir had several performances around Valentines Day. The Pandemic reached Finland in early March. Everything closed down. We got stranded in Finland, but we never were infected. Returning to the US became only possible after November 8, 2021. Because of Birgitta’s sickness (see below) we were not allowed to fly. So, we had to repatriate by travelling with car to Italy, then on a cruise ship to New York and finally with Amtrack to San Jose in California, all in all a 33 day travel.
Feel free to tell us more about Birgitt’s sickness. Is there anything we can learn? Your final word.
Birgitta suffered a lot, but she fought the sicknesses as long as she could. The arthritis caused her to replace her shoulders and later her knees, she had a s cerebellum stroke in 2015 and lost her balance, but she worked through it by training, about the same time she was diagnosed with Bronchiectasis, a lung disease probably caused by smoking from her youth up to her early 40’s. This led to recuring pneumonia, As the lung deteriorated, she was diagnosed having emphysema and COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). This in the end led to heart failure that led to her passing.
Birgitta my love, and my best friend
The sky is most beautiful at dusk.
It is the time for eternal rest.
You will remain in my heart,
until we meet again
Ulf