The Odyssey of Valdemar Albrechtsen

The son of two immigrants from Denmark becomes a professor of English at the Idaho Technical Institute

A copy of The Odyssey purchased in Bend, OR in 2018

Walter Albrethsen was stout, of medium build and had gray eyes and light hair. In 1917, he registered for the draft in WWI. This was a result of the Selective Service Act of 1917 which compelled men 21-30 to sign up for potential drafting. It was amended as of August 1918 to include men aged 18-45 to bar further volunteering. This means that Walter wouldn't have been included until after August.

So on January 28, 1918, he was a student at Idaho Technical Institute, and he wasn't yet being compelled to sign up for the draft. He was reading Palmer's The Odyssey of Homer and annotating it with his own definitions of various words. Beside potent, he's written strong; beside perversity: ill disposition; beside sacked: plundered; beside sumptuous: costly.

His father, Martin, was a farmer in Bannock County, Idaho. In 1920, he even employed his son-in-law, Leonard Lawson, who was widowed after the death of his daughter Christina at age 32. She died tragically while lighting the fire in a stove. He also employed a farmhand named Payton Hurt in 1920.

Martin managed to send his son to college, however, and Valdemar, though he would begin to go by Walter, enrolled at the Idaho Technical Institute. Martin and his wife Karline "Caroline" Pederson were both born in Frederiksborg, Denmark. They immigrated to the United States in the late 1880's. About 10 years later, Walter was born.

Martin Lars Albrechtsen

Caroline Pedersen, Walter's Mother

And in 1918, Walter was at college. That has to have been an incredible feat for a family who had travelled from Denmark in the 1880s in search of a better life for themselves. And presumably, Martin and Karline found each other in this strange new world of Idaho. Perhaps they were introduced, perhaps they frequented the same places or were part of the same community of Danish immigrants. They had raised a son who was reading The Odyssey in English and keeping a list of different poetry meters.

In this book, Walter wrote his assignments. He was supposed to read to page 72 by Monday, and page 88 by Tuesday. His enthusiastic annotations, filling up the first few chapters with pencil scribblings, peter out entirely until all that remains are haphazard weekdays written beside chapter headings to remind himself when he was meant to have finished with them. On the back cover, he's made a list of characters in the book, organizing them by where they lived. Odysseus: Ithaca. Agamemnon: Troy. He also scribbled his name, and 'Idaho Fall'.

It must have been interesting as well to be growing up during WWI in America with an Eastern European sounding name. Did the Albrethsens quit using their Danish name because of discrimination and hostility? Or did they simply want to assimilate as completely as possible?

In 1921, Walter took part in a large-scale rabbit extermination event:

He graduated in 1919 from the vocational school, and then in 1921 from the College. According to the Annual Catalogue of the Idaho Technical Institute (1922), the vocational school offered classes below college level for those who had at least two years of high school or hadn't had the advantage of a nearby high school. This could very well have applied to Walter, who grew up on a farm.

In 1922, he married Helen Lauren McHan. She was born in 1900 to William and Jeannie McHan. William was born in Georgia and Jeannie was born in Utah, although Jeannie's parents were born in Scotland. William worked as a blacksmith for the railroad.

By 1929, Walter Albrethsen was a professor at UISB. He then moved to Denver for a year to teach, and by 1932 he was teaching Civil Engineering and Mathematics at California Polytechnic Institute. For the son of immigrants born on a farm in Idaho, Albrethsen travelled a great deal and did very well for himself. He was listed as a democrat in the 1936 California voter registration.

Picture of Walter Albrethsen in the California Polytechnic Institute Yearbook, El Rodeo, in 1932

He and Helen were also in charge of the Deuel Dorm as resident advisors from 1932-1934.

Deuel Dormitory, 1957

Here, Albrethsen is pictured standing on the right with his dorm charges

Albrethsen on the front row, far right in 1933

He taught this surveying course at the institute with the aim of churning out students with practical skills who were already prepared to work in the industry.

By 1936, he had taken a position working for Idaho as the assistant bridge engineer for the state. He would work there until his retirement.

In 1940, however, he and and his wife were listed on a passenger list leaving for Honolulu, Hawaii from San Francisco and returning the next year in mid-October. This means that the couple missed being in Hawaii for Pearl Harbour by less than two months. I can only imagine what it must have been like to hear Roosevelt's famous broadcast on December 8, 1941 and remember that you'd just returned from there. They had originally been booked to leave in July but pushed their journey back to October. If they had done the same thing in October, and pushed their trip back by the same amount as they had in July, the Albrethsens would have been in Hawaii for the Pearl Harbour attack.

1934 DMV Records, San Luis Obispro

Walter Albrethsen worked for the state of Idaho as the chief bridge engineer until his retirement. He oversaw the planning and implementation of infrastructure in his home state. From parents born in Denmark, Albrethsen worked hard, went to college, and eventually became an integral part in shaping Idaho as it looks today, making it accessible by car. He shaped the lives of countless young men as a professor in engineering, preparing them to become part of the workforce themselves. And, a hundred years later, I held his book in my hands.