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The cemetery where Johan Alfred Rinell was buried was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. The gravestones were reportedly used for the construction of sidewalks. Though the remains of the occupants of the graves were not dug up as far as we know. The location of the individual graves cannot be determined.
Hedvig passed away in Sweden and is buried in a Colldén family plot in a old cemetery in Göteborg.
After they forced out of China, Egron and Gerda moved to Sala, northeast of Uppsala, Sweden for a short period before moving to Japan with their daughter Margareta, but leaving daughter Lally and son John in Sweden to continue their schooling.
After some years Egron and Gerda retired to Sweden. Egron passed away in Sweden while visiting Gerda who was in bed in a hospital. [Add more detail].
[Add info on children].
Hellen and Oscar were now safe and sound in Sweden. Though not exactly being home, especially for Oscar, since he grew up in China and lived there all his life, they had a comfortable little apartment, some Asian vases and scrolls to help them feel at home in their new surroundings, and they had their son Roy, who they had not been able to spend time with for many years. Roy was working as a pastry baker (Konditorie sp?). Oscar also had his books which took up more than one wall of the living room, hundreds of books which Hellen complained of on more than one occasion.
Oscar, restless and still with the desire for more adventure heard that the United Nations needed Chinese translators in Korea for the negotiations between the Communist Chinese and North Koreans on one side and the Americans and South Koreans on the other.
He applied and was accepted. Hellen did not want him to go. "It is a war zone!" she said.
The United Nations made Oscar an officer to give him the status he needed to work with the North Koreans and the communist Chinese. [Not sure when they made him an officer - before he left for Korean or afterward]. He left Sweden for a tent on the 38th parallel in Korea. Surprising he found that he knew someone there, a face he remembered from China, Dollan's piano teacher's husband, Mr. Rieder, the short stubby man as Dollan remembered him who spoke poor Chinese. It was unlikely he was at the negotiations as a translator.
Fluent in written Chinese and spoken Mandarin Chinese one of Oscar's responsibilities, as part of the Supervisory Committee was to read official documents, and figure out if the Chinese negotiators used the correct characters or if they were trying to get away with something. And, he did indeed find incorrect use of characters that the Chinese tried to squeeze through to mean something else. After Korea Oscar returned again to Sweden.
After some time Oscar and Hellen moved to Hemeji, Japan as missionaries. Hellen picked up a fair amount of Japanese, and used it in daily conversations. Oscar didn't pick up Japanese and so used a translator when giving speeches and sermons. They made good friends in Japan. Probably foremost among them were Dr. and Mrs. Oguni and family. After about ten years they retired to Sweden.
After a few years the a mission asked them to take over an orphanage [group of orphanages?] in Korea. The reason [still to be confirmed] is that the former director ran off with the orphanage's money. Older and respected former missionaries, Oscar and Hellen's presence and management of the orphanage would bring the stability the orphanage needed, and provide a sense of security to staff and donors. After two or three years they retired again to Sweden where they lived for many years. Hellen seemed happy to be leading a normal life. Oscar read books, and occasionally gave sermons or lectures, and wrote and published articles.on various subjects relating in China, and his favorite Chinese character, Confucius.
Their son Roy worked for many years as a pastry baker in Göteborg, Sweden. In 1972 [?] Roy had a little cottage or 'stuga' built just outside of the small town of Björketorp on the edge of farmland and forest, about one hundred kilometers outside of the city. He name the stuga Sulatorp after a poor cobbler who used to live in the area. From his stuga he commuted to his job in Göteborg, and at his stuga he built a simple but comfortable life for himself with a green house, small garden, BBQ, potatas kellar (potato cellar) and smoker for curing meat. He would often invite friends over to enjoy his stuga, sit in the garden, eating a good little meal and following that with pastry and coffee.
Roy passed away [heart failure?] much too early in his stuga just before he was to retire.46 A friend, Annie who lived in a nearby house within sight of Sulatorp, found him dead in bed. He had died in his sleep. Oscar and Hellen inherited Sulatorp and eventually moved out of their apartment and into the cabin where they enjoyed the countryside, good neighbors, and occasional visitors. Besides Hellen, Oscar had his books to keep him company, the books sitting two rows deep on many bookshelves. And, he loved watching tennis games brought in via satellite dish to their television. One could watch Oscar while he sat on the edge of his chair watching tennis, eyes fixed on the television in rapt attention. When a good play was made he would shout out 'Jolly good!', his right fist swinging overhead in the air as if the point made was his point scored.
Hellen died at ninety-two years of age in a hospital in or near Göteborg. Oscar almost made ninety-nine years before he passed away at Sulatorp. His goal was to reach a hundred, and he was a bit disappointed when his health was failing and he guessed he would not reach his goal.
[Add info on children].
Roy and Margaret eventually moved out into California's Mojave desert where they owned and operated a lamp shop named The Desert Lampmaker along a narrow two lane desert highway outside of the town Yucca Valley. Roy would drive his four wheel drive truck out into the desert picking up old gnarled pieces of desert wood, cactus and desert vegetation and throw them onto the bed of his truck. Usually traveling off the roads he sometimes would have to use a wench and steel cable attached to the front of his truck to get himself and his truck out of sand traps or other desert hindrances. He would bring his findings back to his workshop at the Desert Lampmaker where he sandblasted the wood to reveal its beautiful grain. Margaret who had the artistic eye used the wood and desert vegetation to create lamps, coffee table center pieces, and wall hangings. The delicious smell of desert wood hung in the dry air of the store and workshop, the smell generated from the saw dust of Roy's woods saws, grinders, and sand blasters. When Roy was at work one could hear the wine of the saw, and the blast of high pressure air from his air tanks and hoses.
Margaret died unexpectedly in 1959 and is buried in a desert cemetery. Roy was deeply saddened by Margaret's death. Not being the artist he sold the Desert Lampmaker workshop, store and business and became a prospector for precious metals, uranium, and semi-precious stones in the desert. He built a flat-roofed cement block house among the rocks and course sands of the desert, and a few feet away from his cement house a lapidary shop containing diamond saws, grinders and polishers. His shop smelled of rock dust, oil used to cool down the diamond saws, and the sweet smell of Roy's cigars that often sat lit or unlit between his lips under his thick bushy mustache. At his workbench he took the cut and polished stones of agate, turquoise and other semi-precious stones and made rings, broaches and bolo ties. He lived several years more or less alone in this fashion though he did have occasional visits of other desert dwellers of the animal or human kind or relatives of Rinell descent who also lived in southern California with their families - previous displaced Swedes whose birthplace and home had originally been China.
As he grew older, Roy moved more and more into dementia. When family members visited him at his home in the desert one year he was complaining bitterly about the camera crew on location at his house who was disturbing his desert tranquility. No camera crew was present or ever had been. Family members convinced him to move out to Ventura, California where he would have more company, and where he could be looked after more or less. He lived in a trailer court for a few years after which he moved into a retirement home, more or less out of necessity. The last months of his life were spent in a bed, an old, gnarled body on crisp white sheets, a large silver and turquoise stone ring on his finger. He didn't eat much toward the end except for bananas, which he loved. He died in that bed, November 4, 1976. The ring was stolen from his finger sometime before or after his death. It wasn't among his personal effects when the family came to visit Roy one last time.12 See letter 'USDCDe9,2007' from LJH to Clerk of The Court in San Diego regarding court judgment dating to 1957. 40 Roy was a member of the Masons, Palestine Lodge, Number Everett Mass, Oasis of Mara Lodge, Number 735. Grantly A. Samuel, Master, Yucca Valley Lodge Number 802. The information above was from a red, yellow and white funeral services card entitled ' Our Tribute of affection. The card was in light yellow envelope on which was written 'For survivors of Leroy Roberts Jewett - Masonic Funeral Service. The sealed envelope and never been opened until I did so on December 28, 2007. LJH.
Edith never married, but worked as a nurse among children whom she loved. Some of this time was under C. Everett Koop who was to become the Surgeon General of the United States under the Ronald Reagan [?] administration. She eventually settled in southern California living in Tarzana [?] and a small house in the suburbs of Ventura some blocks from her niece Dollan, but eventually living in a retirement home in the coastal town of San Luis Obispo near her nephew John Rinell. She died at 90+ [?] years of age in that town.
Erik moved to the United States.
[Add info on children].
As mentioned in the book the Wangtai church was torn down and the property left vacant. Years later Lally Rinell found the deeds to the [circa 2007] property in the archives at Bethel Seminary in Stockholm. She sent copies of the deeds with the hope that the Wangtai Christians can build another church.
Oscar stayed in the Iltis Huk house for a time when he was not allowed to return to the family home in Kiaohsien. Yang Lian, the cook, stayed with Oscar at the Iltis Huk house before Oscar left for Sweden for the last time. His oldest daughter lived with her family in the garage of the house until recent times.56 Email from Lally Rinell to LJH, January 29, 2008. The house was torn down [circa 2002?] and replaced by a beautiful house. Most of the house in the area are now occupied by Chinese navy officers - a navy base in the area includes the Point at Iltis Huk. Lally Rinell visited both the Iltis Huk house and the Tsingtao house several times in recent years.
The Rinell's cook, Yang Lian, lived in the house until he died some years ago. Now there are several chinese families in the house and in later additions in the small yard.
Charles and Macy Reinbrecht lived and worked in Hong Kong until 1967 and then returned to the Unites States.The kids were already in the US attending school.
Georgie left China in January 1949 for with her parents Hong Kong, and later that year returned to the United States, graduating high school in Haddonfield, NJ in 1950, and Gettysburg College in 1954. After her experiences having US navy bands from the US ships playing at her high school dances she thought it was tacky when they played records at her dances college. Georgie eventually married a Mr. Knisely.
Georgie's brother, Chuck, after his schooling in Korea went to the boarding school Stony Brook on Long Island in the United States, because his parents thought they could not adequately home school him for his high school years in China.
After attending the mission school in Jiaozhou, Yin Ying served in the Chinese Nationalist Army. As the Communist Chinese army was taking over mainland China he fled to Taiwan where he studied to be a Lutheran pastor. Eventually, he work in the Lutheran Publishing House in Taipei, Taiwan. Later he and his family moved to San Francisco, California where his wife passed away. He and his son and a daughter still live in San Francisco where he writes and publishes in Chinese. One of his publications is a book entitle, My golden years. Joy and Sadness Intertwined.
The Catholic Mission was on the opposite side of the road to the Lutheran compound. When Lally Rinell, Oscar Rinell and Thora went to Kioahsien in 1983 there were new buildings in this compund. However, the little Catholic church was still standing, but it was being used by a primary school. The Catholic Mission handome brick buildings were still standing, but were being use as Police Headquarters.
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Revised: 15-Jun-2009
Copyright by Lennart Holmquist, 2007-09
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