3 July 2020

Vestre gravlund (Western Cemetery), Oslo, Norway, Part IV

I paid Vestre gravlund (Western Cemetery) in Oslo a short visit on Thursday 2 July in order to fulfill a Findagrave.com photo request. I had made a long list of graves to take photos of for my last visit in April this year, but discovered after my visit that I had missed one grave. So I did «my duty» today and will upload the photo at Findagrave.com soon. The photo is not included in this short article, though. Except for the photo request I had no plan for today's visit, so there are no particular reasons behind choice of grave photos. I took some more photos that are not included here.


Squirrels are everywhere to be seen in the cemetery, but I have never managed to take a decent photo of one until today, and this little fellow was even taking a snack on top of a headstone! Grave of Kirsten Rønning (1920–2001).


Sokoloff grave.

Shetelig grave. Originally the family name was spelt Schetelig.

Borchsenius family grave. I am distantly related to the family through Sofie Cappelen (1869–1939), whose name is no. 2 from the top.


The funeral service for René «Roma» Karoli (1963–2020), a leading member of the Norwegian Roma family Karoli, who died on 21 June, took place at Vestre gravlund kapell (Western Cemetery Chapel) earlier on 2 July, followed by burial in the Karoli family grave. When I passed the grave there were still mourning family members present, so the photo of the grave is of last year. The family had rolled out a long red carpet from the chapel to the grave. Buried in the grave are Polykarp Karoli (1916–2001), his wife Lola Karoli (1918–1996), their grandson (and one of René's sons) Daimens Kaikoni (1985–2017) and now also René. Their legal names, the names in the Public Register and in the cemetery register, were Pål Karlsen, Eva Karlsen and Pål Johansen respectively. I am not sure at present wether René was legally surnamed Karoli or Karlsen. Should add that the cemetery register says that Lola was born om 27 July 1918, while the headstone says 15 January 1929. Polykarp was according to the former source born on 26 December 1916, while the headstone says 24 December.


Photos: © 2019–2020 Dag Trygsland Hoelseth.

I have called this article «Vestre gravlund (Western Cemetery), Oslo, Norway, Part IV», but I have written more articles with photos from this cemetery, but under other subject titles, so the present article could have been named «Part VIII» ... Follow the link for more details.

Updated on 3 July 2020 at 00:15 (a couple of sentences regarding Polykarp's and Lola's birth dates were added), last time on 5 July 2020 (spelling of name corrected).

3 comments:

  1. Great lighting on your closeup of the squirrel who looks as if he/she is doing a drumroll on Kirsten's headstone :-) Did the Romani typically change their names to Norwegian names? Interesting post.
    KFB

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  2. Some of the Roma have changed their names, but far from all. The late René Karoli has been listed with that name in the cemetery register, i.e. his original name, and not René Karlsen, so he seems to have changed back to his original name at some point.

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  3. Have you ever visited Stockholm, Sweden? If so, its university once had a famous lecturer named Ulla Bergryd. She also appeared John Huston's 1966 20th Century Fox religious-themed film "The Bible: In the Beginning" as Eve alongside Michael Parks who performed as her husband Adam. I believe she is buried in Stockholm someplace.

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