7/26/2008 - Exchange student returns to Red Hook after 50 years

By: Erikah Haavie, Correspondent
Gazette Advertiser

RED HOOK - Fifty years ago, Dagfinn Albrechtsen took what he called “a journey to wonderland.”

He left his homeland of Norway and arrived in the quaint village of Red Hook (NY) to spend a year with a local family as a foreign exchange student.

Along with 51 other students, Albrechtsen graduated from the Red Hook school in 1958 and went back to Norway to pursue a career and start a family.

For the first time in five decades, Albrechtsen came back to Red Hook last weekend to share in celebrating a 50-year reunion with fellow members of his class.

Albrechtsen originally came to Red Hook through an exchange program between Norway and the United States offered by American Field Service. He was one of about 90 Norwegian high school students selected to participate that year.

Coming to the United States from post-war Norway, Albrechtsen described the United States as “a land of richness.” He was adopted by the Petz family for the year, a family that he described as “very gracious.”

He started attending classes at what is now Linden Avenue Middle School, which served kindergarten through grade 12 at that time.

“I liked the school very much,” he said.

Albrechtsen found that he was well ahead of his class in mathematics and science, but found he had a lot to learn about American history and sports.

“I learned to play tennis,” he said. “I wasn’t good, but I learned it.”

In addition to refining his English, one of the most helpful skills he learned while at Red Hook was typing.

“I learned to type,” Albrechtsen said. “That was very useful.”

After graduating, Albrechtsen went on to attend medical school in Oslo and Bergen, Norway. He began working at the University Hospital in Oslo in 1974, where he was a surgeon specializing in organ transplants.

To prepare for his return to Red Hook, Albrechtsen said he got out a copy of his old yearbook and tried to imagine what his classmates would look like today.

Recalling names isn’t a problem for Albrechtsen, but remembering faces is a bit more challenging, he said.

After several brunches, dinners and parties with friends last week, Albrechtsen is still bubbling over with the excitement of coming back to the Hudson Valley.

He has kept in contact with his host family and will be traveling to Ohio this week to visit with his “brothers,” Bill and Dick Petz.

One of the wonderful things about coming back to Red Hook was seeing the village itself.

“It’s just what it was,” Albrechtsen said. “It looks exactly the same.”

He has kept in contact with some members of his class. On Sunday afternoon, he spent time with Judy Walsh Carr, who was Red Hook’s first exchange student to Germany, and Jim Hardin, who served as class president.

“We had a very good turnout from our class,” said Carr, who did much work behind-the-scenes in organizing events.

Class members came from Florida , Virginia , Washington D.C. and Kansas for the reunion.

Hardin, who retired from the Library of Congress, said he was impressed by “the spirit” that the class has. There were no cliques to speak of, and “we all seem to care about one another,” he said.

Since many of them knew each other since kindergarten, “we were all friends with each other,” Carr said.

She described the class spirit as “very happy, very positive.”

“Fifty is a big celebration,” Carr said.

This article was originally published here.