Lasse Tynning

When the new municipality of Porsgrunn was to elect its very first conciliation board in December 1963, one name topped the list with the unanimous recommendation of the executive committee: Lasse Tynning of Eidanger. When Porsgrunns Dagblad in the autumn of 1972 wanted to tell readers what the women of Eidanger did when the war came, it was Åshild Tynning at Valler they sought out. She had kept the minutes. Between those two moments lies half a century in which the couple at Søndre Valler helped shape their community, from agriculture and schooling to politics and civil defence.

The story begins in Brekke in outer Sogn. On the farm Tynning, Lasse was born on 20 December 1898, the son of nursery owner Isak Tynning (1875-1960) and Brita, née Østerbø. His father started Tynning Planteskule and wrote about fruit growing in coastal districts, and the name Lasse had recurred on the farm for generations: his grandfather was Lasse Torstensen Tynning, born 1842. On the neighbouring farm Haugland, Åshild was born on 10 February 1897, daughter of Torstein H. Haugland.

Lasse was not only a farmer's son. He took examen artium, and in December 1920 he graduated from Sandved horticultural school near Sandnes with the best mark of seventeen pupils. At twenty he lectured in the temperance society and served as a delegate for the Sogn youth societies, and in the autumn of 1927 he wrote political pieces in Sogns Avis for the Farmers' Party. That spring he carried a 4,000-year-old stone axe, found in a ditch on his father's holding, to Bergen Museum. Then he bought a farm in Eidanger. There he sat on the land board from 1928, ran Valler Gartneri with apprentices, sold building plots at Vallermyrene in the 1930s and was deputy chairman of the Eidanger branch of Bygdefolkets krisehjelp in 1935.

Both were the kind of people who set things in motion. In 1919 Lasse was a delegate for the Sogn youth societies and lectured in the temperance society. Åshild took her teacher's exam at Stord lærarskule the same year and took her first post in Solund. Lasse attended commercial college in 1916, horticultural school in 1920 and took examen artium in 1926 — an unusually long education for a farmer's son at the time.

In 1928 Lasse bought the property Søndre Valler in Eidanger near Porsgrunn, and on 26 May 1928 he married Åshild in Brekke church. The church book shows that the groom already lived in Eidanger, while the bride came from a teaching post in Voss. The deed for the farm, 68 000 kroner, was printed in Breviksposten in January 1929. At Valler they ran a nursery and farm, and already in 1930 we find advertisements for "Valler Gartneri" in the local papers — the same year the young farmer made the national newspaper Nationen boil with his criticism of the new land law.

Both threw themselves into community life. Lasse became a driving force in Eidanger Landbrukslag, later Eidanger Bondelag, and served as chair for many years. Åshild became a teacher, from 1937 permanently at Tveten school, and the same year chair of Eidanger Husmorforening. He stood on the Farmers' Party lists for the municipal council, she sat on the popular enlightenment board. And in their free time they were a bridge partnership in the club Lasse helped found.

When war threatened in the winter of 1940, Kvinnenes Arbeidshjelp was established in Eidanger, and Åshild Tynning became chair of its agriculture committee. Together with the district agronomist she trained young women to take over farm work if the men had to go to war, with Valler as one of the practice farms. Lasse's war effort never appeared in the newspapers — and that was the whole point. After liberation he received a certificate of thanks from the Norwegian Armed Forces High Command's Office II, the Norwegian intelligence service in London, for the support he gave to intelligence work in the freedom struggle 1940-45.

Peace released enormous energy in both of them. In the autumn of 1945 Lasse was number three on the Farmers' Party's Storting list for Telemark. In February 1946 Åshild was elected first chair of the re-established Telemark Bondekvinnelag, a post she held until 1952, and in 1948 she joined the editorial board of Norges Bondekvinnelag. She spoke for farm women on NRK radio, raised women's property rights at national meetings and in 1956 won national press attention for the demand for barn assistants for farm wives. He wrote the jubilee book "Porsgrunn Meieribolag gjennom 50 år", sat on the board of the dairy and Telemark Landbruksselskap, led Telemark Bondelag's tax committee and was credited with the establishment of the Tax Office for agriculture and forestry.

Through the 1950s and into the 1960s Lasse Tynning was one of Eidanger's most prominent politicians. When Eidanger, Brevik and Porsgrunn were merged in 1964, he became the Centre Party group leader in the new city council and chair of the new conciliation board, where, according to the obituary, "with his rare ability to find ways to get the parties to settle he did a unique piece of work".

Lasse Tynning died quietly at St. Joseph's Hospital on 10 October 1964, only 66 years old. Obituaries appeared in newspapers across the country, and Porsgrunns Dagblad summarised: "In the Porsgrunn district, indeed in the whole of Telemark county, Lasse Tynning was an institution. He was the sharp oracle of the farming community, always well equipped with factual knowledge, an untiring fighter in the current social debate, combative and attentive, sharp as said, but not hasty. Lasse Tynning stood strong in many a public exchange of words; his opinions were heard whether one agreed with him or had a different view. He could also act as a breakwater, for he was understanding and tolerant."

Åshild continued on the school board and at the lectern until she retired in 1967, honoured for thirty years of teaching at Tveten school. She followed her sons onward: Torstein, who became a national politician, and Åsmund Lasse, who took over Søndre Valler from 1965. She died on 9 September 1974. Between them, Lasse and Åshild Tynning touched almost every trust a community has to offer: youth clubs, farmers' leagues, farm women's leagues, housewives' associations, school boards, municipal councils, city councils, tax boards and conciliation boards. They arrived from Sogn and ended up as the very glue of Eidanger. And the name lives on: the name Lasse has been handed down on the Tynning farm in Brekke since the early 1800s, and continues in the family today.