Our previous post was about Preben's career with Nilfisk in Belgium and his knighting by Queen Margrethe II. We noted that after 43 years with Nilfisk, Preben officially retired on December 31, 1992 in anticipation of his 70th birthday in May, 1993.
Preben went on to live for another 21 years, passing away not long after his 91st birthday in May, 2014. In this post, we will see how Preben made very good use of those twenty-one years, giving generously of his time, gifts, and pocketbook, to help others.
First and foremost, Preben was able to spend more time with his bride, Agnès.
Here is a picture of the two of them in downtown Brussels in February 1993 (between his official retirement date and his 70th birthday).
In retirement, Preben embarked on, or continued work on, many projects which are described below.
Family history and genealogy
Over the years, Preben became a very good family historian and genealogist, making an extensive chart of his maternal family going back to the 1600s and extending to a huge number of descendants living in Denmark and the USA.
Among many other discoveries, his work showed that the names Helene and Brita had been passed down in the family for centuries. He also discovered that the ancestors of his maternal grandmother, Abrahamine (Soren's wife), had immigrated from Sweden.
Here is a photo of Abrahamine's forefather Olaf Muhrmann (1782-1863):
Oluf Muhrmann was a tanner (leather maker) who had immigrated from Kristianstad, Sweden.
After Preben and I began work on the Anna Bøg story, Preben also developed genealogical tables for Anna Bøg's extended family and one of her relatives by affinity (marriage of Anna Bøg's nephew to a Danish immigrant descendant in the USA). He also worked on the genealogy of his father.
Celebration of 155th birth anniversary of Grandfather Søren at the Rebild National Park in Jutland
Related to Preben's work with family history, in 2000 he hosted a large celebration of the 155th birth anniversary of his grandfather Søren Christian Christensen at the Rebild National Park in Jutland.
The Rebild is the site of the annual Danish-American Fourth of July celebration. The festivities were attended by many Christensen descendants and their spouses including a young American and her husband.
Project with Douglas Bridges
As mentioned in an earlier post, when Preben first moved to Brussels he lived in a boarding house where he met and befriended Douglas Bridges. Bridges had been a Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot during World War II, flying a Lancaster aircraft with the 166th Squadron of the RAF.
By the time Preben met Bridges post-war, Bridges was flying for the Belgian airlines Sabena. Bridges undertook a project to photograph the graves of his fallen comrades for their families and Preben assisted Bridges in this noble work.
Here is how Preben described the effort:
"[I'm] still helping my R.A.F. pilot friend to collect information on his squadron's casualties in 1943/45. Latest visit in November to a newly placed memorial in northeast Belgium."
(Letter dated December 27, 2002.)
"[I have been] helping Douglas Bridges living in Northern England, a R A F pilot shot down over Alsace in April 1944 on a bomber expedition to Friederikshafen. Only he and the front gunner survived, the 5 others from his Lancaster are buried close to Rhinen. Douglas decided to collect pictures of gravestones from all those from his 166th squadron and send one to the families. He needed help so I have been taking him around to many places, Belgium, Holland, Germany; with Agnès we took pictures in Denmark. Friends in Norway and Sweden collected in those countries so Douglas is a happy man."
(Letter dated May 13, 2009.)
When one considers that an aircraft squadron consists of 12 to 24 planes and each plane is manned by several men, this was a big project. The image above shows one of the Lancaster bombers from the 166th squadron.
Old Nilfisk
Preben was also active in an organization of Nilfisk retirees/ former employees called "Old Nilfisk". (The name choice is, I suspect, an expression of typical Danish humor - something that is difficult to define but not so hard to recognize.)
Membership included but was not limited to the following: Tim Rishoj, Peder Fisker,Terkel Bering, Frits Frederiksen, Joachim Borras, Adolfo Balma, Poul Goerner, Egil Gulliksen, Pat Murphy, Bo Urbans, Steen Rasmussen, Niels Mogensen, Kurt Andersen, and Torben Hoffman.
Old Nilfisk held annual gatherings over many years.
In 2002 Preben wrote that in May 2001 he had gone "for a long weekend to Portugal to meet [my] former Nilfisk boss and several colleagues from twenty countries, for a short celebration. None is still in the organization (retired or in some other job). We try to keep together once a year." (Letter dated December 27, 2002.)
The three images below are from a gathering of Old Nilfisk members and spouses in 2008.
Preben was a very social man and one can clearly see in this latter image his enjoyment of the gathering.
Mentoring
Preben also spent more than 15 years
mentoring a younger man who had made a mid-life career change and
become the manager of a small firm. In order to enhance the man's success, Preben assisted with the
administrative and accounting facets of the business free of charge. (Letter dated May 13, 2009,)
2002 Danish Royal State Visit to Belgium
In 2002, Queen Margrethe and her French-born consort Prince Henrik made another state visit to Belgium. Preben was attached to Prince Henrik for the visit. The photo of Prince Henrik below is from a few years later (2005) but likely provides an idea of how the Prince appeared at the time.
Preben explained that in anticipation of the 2002 state visit he worked on a list of about 400 persons to be invited to meet Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik at a reception in the vicarage of the Danish church in Brussels that would take place at the end of May. Preben described the event as follows
"Here came the Queen and the Prince to whom all the 400 were presented and even the vicarage is big, it is not big enough for so many, so a tent was raised on the lawn, and luckily with a roof, as all in a sudden the rain started pouring down. As one of the Danes having been in Belgium for the longest period of time (since 1949) and French-speaking, [I] was attached to the Prince (of French origin) during the visit.
"The Queen offered a stylish goodby dinner to the Belgian Royal family in a fashionable place where we were invited with a number of Danes and especially Belgian authorities. Agnes and I, like other couples, were seated at tables far apart."
(Letter dated December 27, 2002.)
Life Story of Anna Bøg & Mission in Manchuria
I had met Anna Bøg once as a child and had been much impressed with her. She had a remarkable presence that surely was the product of her many years and hardships in Christian service in China. When I was an adult someone asked me who had impressed me the most as a child, aside from members of the immediate family. Without any hesitation I replied that it had been Anna Bøg.
A few years later, I started trying to find information about her. I thought of Preben because I knew of his genealogies. He willingly went to work on this with remarkable results. Before long he had made contact with Danish author and missionary daughter Kirsten Berggren Buch, who had been born in China with Anna Bøg as midwife. Buch was the author of Hver en Storm about Danish missionaries in Harbin, China published by Unitas Forlag, and several other books.
And not long after that Preben remembered once seeing a truck with the name Bøg-Madsen.
Preben followed that lead and made contact with Erik Bøg Madsen, head of the large Odense nursery Bøg-Madsen. It turned out that Erik's mother was a relative of Anna Bøg. Erik shared letters and information about Anna Bøg.
From there, the search and information gathering spread to a large number of contacts including former friends, associates, and neighbors of Anna Bøg, as well as relatives of Anna Bøg in Denmark and the USA. These sources provided an occasional letter or news article or photo which we pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle.
We were also able to access old archived
copies of the Danish missionary publication from what is now
Danmission (formerly the Danish Missionary Society). Lengthy translation
efforts ensued. Preben translated many items and the wife of an
American cousin of Preben's translated others while I struggled to
fill in gaps with the use of online translation tools and a dictionary provided by a Christensen-Anesen granddaughter. I also read a lot of books about China, especially regarding missionary efforts.
Finally, more than ten years after the initial contact, we began publication via Blogger. A few of the early articles were published under Preben's name and then somewhat later we started using the pen name of
"The Danish Knight", which we viewed as a team made up of Preben and
me jointly. Preben had some reservations about the use of the name
"The Danish Knight" but ultimately permitted me to use it.
To be concluded with a description of Prebens final years that will be published on May 13, 2023, the 100th anniversary of Preben's birth . .
Attributions:
Photo of Lancaster bomber from Wikimedia Commons (in the public domain).
Photo of Prince Henrik in 2005 from Wikimedia Commons by Erik Christensen (some rights reserved).
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