Karin Anna Strom

Karin Anna Strom, daughter of Anna Amanda Smeds and Charles John Strom, was born 2 September 1918 in Reedley, Fresno County, CA. She was raised on a farm north of that community along with her older sister Agnes and younger sister Frances. All three girls attended Reedley High School.

Karin went to college at San Jose State College, doing so simultaneously with both sisters for part of that interval. Karin received her B.A. from that institution in 1940 along with a credential to teach kindergarten and primary grades.

It was during her time in the South Bay Area that she met the man who would become her husband. He was Arthur Hansen Nelson, son of John Nelson and Etta Hansen. His father had come to the U.S. from Scotland as a young man. His mother had been born in California, but was of recent Danish extraction. The youngest child of his family, Art had been born in San Jose 1 October 1919 and had subsequently been raised in that community. His father had died a few days after Art turned fifteen years old. Fortunately his mother was able to hang on in the same house, in part due to the presence of Arthur’s much-older brother Clarence.

Karin and Art’s relationship built somewhat slowly, one complication being the interference of a little thing called World War II. In the spring of 1942, Art enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps. But to be fair, the courtship was by then already a long-distance romance sort of thing because Karin had launched her career as an educator and her posting had taken her away from San Jose. Beginning with the fall term of 1940 and continuing on halfway into 1944, Karin taught kindergarten at Standard School in Oildale, Kern County, CA, a small town on the northern outskirts of Bakersfield. At first she lived in a one-story apartment house at 221 Wilson Street in Oildale itself, sharing the residence with three other young single women. After a year or so, she moved to 1712 First Street in Bakersfield.

Karin and Art may have delayed the start of their marriage due to the war, but eventually they got tired of Hitler and Hirohito spoiling their fun. Patience exhausted, the pair were wed at the post chapel at Kelly Field, the army airbase in San Antonio, Bexar County, TX, where Art was stationed as a lieutenant. The event took place Saturday, 26 August 1944. (The photograph of Art at right was taken that same year.)

The 1940s continued to be a transitional period and the couple did not return to California for good until 1949. After Art’s military service was done, he went on to attend Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, where he obtained a doctorate in Botany. Karin taught first grade in Ithaca for the 1948-49 academic year. Their goal was to return to the west coast and happily this worked out right away when Art was accepted to the faculty at San Francisco State University. Karin and Art settled on the San Francisco peninsula and would never again live anywhere else. They spent decades at a home in Burlingame, meaning they were not far north of the San Mateo home of Karin’s sister Frances and brother-in-law Erwin Jost.

Despite being a stable, settled couple, Karin and Art never became parents. Nevertheless, Karin chose to be a homemaker. After she and Art came back west, she taught full-time for just one year -- the 1949/50 school year in Mountain View, Santa Clara County, where she served as a first grade teacher. After that she limited herself to substitute teaching. “Limited” isn’t meant to imply it was a once-in-a-while thing. She spent many hours in classrooms over the decades, filling in at schools in the upper peninsula in such communities as Burlingame, Millbrae, and San Francisco. She also put in a great deal of volunteer work at home transcribing material into Braille for the blind.

Karin and Art enjoyed camping. This was true from the earliest days of their relationship. In 1948, they climbed all the way to the top of Mount Whitney. They went to such places as Yosemite and Death Valley. Without kids, they were free to travel more widely than some of their peers. They even made a trip to Australia in the early 1960s. This was by no means Karin’s first foray overseas, though. In 1948 -- the same year she had scaled Mount Whitney -- Karin had accompanied her parents when they made a trip back to Finland to see Charlie’s mother and stepfather and other Strom-Polander relatives.

While Karin and Art were active younger adults, they often got by with a tent and sleeping bags. Then Karin developed rheumatoid arthritis. This plagued her to such a degree that she sometimes found it difficult to walk. Even in her early forties, she resorted to a set of dual canes with arm braces to get around. By the time she grew elderly she found it necessary to use a wheelchair to reduce her risk of falling. Not wanting to give up their outdoor vacation excursions, Art rigged up a Volkswagen minivan so that they could still visit their favorite places and explore new ones without putting undue strain on Karin’s legs.

Art passed away 18 December 1988, probably at Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco. Karin survived him by only eighteen months, expiring 28 May 1990 at home in Burlingame. Given their lack of progeny, a significant portion of their estate was donated to SFSU. To this day, there is an Arthur Nelson Graduate Scholarship awarded to several Biology grad students each year.

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