From Ardys (Mrs.Paul S.) Van Valkenburg

From the Minneapolis (MN) Star Tribune Newspaper, Sept. 3, 1956

Any glider pilot has to know the weather. So it's not too surprising that World War II glider pilot Paul S. Van Valkenburg is now Waterman-Waterbury weathermaster.

First Lt. Van Valkenburg flew five glider missions into Burma to drop airborne engineer equipment during World War II. He's still an active air force reservist and retains his pilot status.

At Waterman-Waterbury, he officially took over as weathermaster five months ago. He's in charge of compiling monthly statistics for the W-W weather bulletins. They figure on a nine-month heating season, three-month cooling season. The figures are different from those released by the weather bureau, since Waterman-Waterbury ignore any degree hours between 65 and 80.

Van Valkenburg came to W-W as an accountant and worked his way up to purchasing agent, a job he still holds along with his weathermastering.

Van Valkenburg, who served as cannon fodder during football days at the University of Minnesota (he was on the Bomber squad) still is active in athletics at 41. He plays shortstop ("I can barely bend over") for the company softball team and holds down a 180 bowling average in the Southwest commercial league.

A member of the national associations for cost accountants and purchasing agents and of Westphal American Legion post, he's also an elder at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian church, where wife, Ardys, is a deaconess.

They have two youngsters, Susan, 11 and Carole, 5 and live at 244 Xerxes Avenue S., just a few blocks from the spot where Van Valkenburg spent his boyhood.

From Ardys, 2000 Addendum:

Paul was born 7-12-1915. He went into the Army Air Corps Cadets in May, 1941. Oct 1941 he "washed out" (thank goodness) as a pilot and was to be re-assigned to Bombardier section. We married 2-28-1942 as he expected to be called back any day. August, he enlisted in the Corps Glider program and earned Glider Pilot wings in Feb, 1944. Oct 1944 he was sent to the China-Burma-India theatre. Stationed in India, he flew several glider missions behind Japanese lines in Burma.

Our daughter Susan Gay was born 11 Nov 1944 in Cumberland, WI where the two of us stayed with my parents. At the end of war with Japan, Oct 26, 1945, he was sent back to the States and home awaiting further assignment. However, one month later he became violently ill and was diagnosed with amoebic abscess of the liver by an old army doctor who had seen it before in his years of Army practice. He was in and out of hospitals until Dec 1946 and sent back into service briefly before getting a discharge. He stayed in the Air Force Reserve for about 30 years and retired as a Lt. Colonel.

Paul had worked with the M& St. L RR but was physically unfit for trainman duty so went to an accounting academy. From that training he was hired by the Waterman-Waterbury Furnace Co. in spring 1948. In the meantime, housing was practically unavailable so from 1946 to 1948 little Susan and I continued to live with my parents in Wisconsin and Paul lived with his parents in Minneapolis. We traveled back and forth by train about every 2-3 weeks to be together a bit. In 1949 we bought a little house and finally lived together as a family.

In 1951 our daughter Carole was born and son Jay in 1957.

In 1961 there was an article and picture in the local paper entitled "Van Valkenburg 51-yr-old Goes 3-for-7 at Bat." He began playing League softball (fast pitch) for Waterman-Waterbury and played on Championship teams 1951,'52 and '55 in the Minneapolis Park Board Commercial League. He kept his batting average up around the 400 mark.

We are now retired and live in Arizona.