Sverre Tynning

Sverre was the youngest of the nine children of Isak and Brita at Tynning. In 1920 he was four years old, while several of the older siblings were already working at home or studying. A school photograph from Haugland in 1926 shows him as a ten-year-old. Later he attended Sogndal folk high school in the school year 1936–1937.

The county archive has preserved a more informal glimpse of his youth. By the old house at Tynning his foster brother Henry Johannesen sits on the horse Gamle Blakken while Sverre holds the bridle. The archive text calls him the family's «skrapkake» — the youngest — and briefly adds «California». In a single line it holds both the childhood at home and the long leap to the life he later made on the west coast of the United States.

Sverre chose the sea as his workplace and was an electrician aboard a tanker before the war. It was a skilled responsibility for the engine and electrical installations on board, and it took him far from Brekke.

On 13 September 1945 Sogns Avis reported that his brother Lars Konrad, then a teacher at Kvamsøy, had recently received an old letter from Sverre. The letter was written on 4 January 1940 while the tanker the newspaper called «Thorshøvd» was in the Southern Ocean to collect whale oil. Only after more than five years did it arrive.

Sverre is registered in the Norwegian War Sailor Register at the Norwegian Centre for War Sailor History with seaman ID 570140 and his father given as Isak Tynning. The register documents his entire war service through five engagements, and with that the uncertainty about the ships' names is settled: the newspaper's «Thorshøvd» was M/T Thorshøvdi, and «Iselina» was M/T Iselin.

He signed on M/T Thorshøvdi as electrician in Sandefjord on 18 September 1939 and signed off at Terminal Island in Los Angeles on 21 April 1941. Then followed M/S Manuel of Panama as electrician from San Pedro on 26 September 1941 (on board as of 27 January 1942), M/T Basilea as motorman from San Francisco on 30 June to San Pedro on 11 September 1943, M/S Alf Lindeberg as motorman from San Francisco 24 April to 4 October 1944, and finally M/T Iselin as electrician from San Francisco on 9 November 1944, on board as of 30 June 1945.

The list also explains why his life became Californian. He came ashore at Terminal Island as early as April 1941, and all his remaining war service sailed out of Californian ports. The ship he began the war on, M/T Thorshøvdi, was mined by an Italian midget submarine at Gibraltar on 4 August 1943 and broke in two — two years after Sverre had signed off. During the war his register numbers were London 27112 and New York 8643.

On 25 September 1980 Sverre Tynning was awarded the War Medal for his service in the merchant fleet during the Second World War. The award came thirty-five years after the peace, to a man who by then had lived a whole life on the other side of the continent.

Sverre came ashore at Terminal Island in April 1941, and California was where he stayed. The American Social Security record (NUMIDENT) confirms his identity right down to his parents' names: «Sverre Tynning, born 21 March 1916 in Brekke, Norway, son of Isak Tynning and Brita Osterbo». The social security number was issued in California. He died on 15 July 2004, resident in Anaheim in Orange County (ZIP 92804).

The California Birth Index also gives his wife's name. Their son Peter S. Tynning was born on 6 March 1958 in Orange County, and the mother's maiden name is recorded as Ramos. Graciela's maiden name was therefore Ramos.

Around 1990 Sverre lived near Desert Hot Springs in the Californian desert. In 1992 he took a federal appeal against the city — Tynning v. City of Desert Hot Springs, 958 F.2d 378 (9th Circuit) — after a police officer entered his house without a warrant and pointed a gun at him. He lost the case, but carried it all the way to a federal court of appeals, at the age of 75. The fighting spirit of Isak and Lasse had evidently survived the crossing of the Atlantic.

Graciela Tynning was born on 5 November 1933 and died on 24 May 2018 in Riverside County, California, the same county as Temecula where Peter and the family live. She outlived Sverre by almost fourteen years. Source: the U.S. Social Security NUMIDENT record.

Today the family lives in Temecula, California, southeast of Los Angeles. Aviation runs through this branch: both Peter and his son Ryan have backgrounds as pilots. Ryan works as a pilot (Aircom Media), and Peter is listed in the FAA's public airmen registry, today holding a drone certificate (Part 107). His uncle Paul in Florida holds a degree in aviation management. Three pilots in one branch — with roots back to the electrician who signed on in Sandefjord in 1939.

Their daughter Christina Tynning LaMair works in the media industry in Los Angeles. In December 2025 she became Director of Client & Media Performance at InterMedia Advertising (source: PR Newswire, 18 December 2025).

The connection across the Atlantic is alive: Øystein and Johanne visited Peter and the family outside Los Angeles in January 2015, with their son Lasse in their arms. Nearly seventy years after Sverre came ashore in California, the branches met again.

The American records reveal a moving detail: Sverre named his sons after himself and after his brother. Peter carries his father's name — Peter Sverre Tynning — and Paul carries the name of the uncle who emigrated to Canada — Paul Irgen Tynning. The brothers who left together in 1950, each to his own continent, live on side by side in the next generation. The naming tradition from Brekke crossed the Atlantic.

Paul Irgen Tynning lives in Sunrise, Broward County, in the Miami–Fort Lauderdale metropolitan area of Florida. He holds a degree in Aviation Management from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, one of the well-known aviation schools in the United States, and has later worked for the cruise giant Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings in Miami and in finance and technology in Fort Lauderdale. While Peter's branch remained in California where Sverre came ashore, Paul put down roots on the other coast of the United States. In a way the sons mirror the fathers: two branches, two coasts, the same roots in Brekke.

The Seafarers International Union listed Sverre among deceased members in September 2004. The registration states that he died on 15 July, aged 88. The short notice does not give the rest of his life story, but it shows that his ties to the seafaring community were still part of the public record of his life.

The notice in the Orange County Register is behind a paywall at GenealogyBank.