|
Across from Lake Merritt in Oakland California where they lived. Collection of Diana Darnaby, 5-25-06 |
via email from Diana Darnaby, 5-21-06 My name is Diana Darnaby and I just happened across your site-Very Nice! I looked up Rosto Monoplane and am glad so much has been done with the portfolio I gave to Al Grady that was Oliver's. I saw you had a great-grand-daughter of Oliver's interested in information about him. I am the daughter of Lars H. Lind and Oliver was one of his best friends. Mary's daughter Evelyn gave his portfolio to my Dad who had intended to do something with it, but had a stroke and so I inherited it after my step-mother's death in 2002. (Dad passed in 1999.) It was Great that Al Grady got the portfolio and eventually the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. I live in Summerfield FL and if you still have the lady's email address, Lene Westeras, you could give her mine and I would be glad to give her more information about the Rostos...They were Very Dear People! I'm so glad Oliver is getting the recognition he deserves! Kindest Regards, Diana |
 |
Left to Right: Oliver Rosto, Chuck Beattie, a family friend, and Diana Collection of Diana Darnaby, 5-25-06 |
via email from Diana Darnaby, 5-21-06 The Rostos were like Grandparents to my brother and I. My Dad and Oliver had Great Times together, a Swede and a Norwegian, both with roots in Duluth. Dad had an aircraft instruments shop at the old Oakland Airport. He'd previously been a flight inspector for Pan American and met Oliver who was working for the CAA after the war. Then it became the FAA. Dad sponsored Oliver to be inducted into the QB's San Francisco Hangar. I've been trying to get my brother to go thru the family pictures and donate some of Oliver and Mary by way of Al Grady, to no avail. The only other picture I KNOW I have here somewhere is of Oliver holding salmon we'd caught on a charter boat in Oregon - the Patty Ann, (which was written about by Ken Kesey in his book "One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest". Dad and Mom took the Rostos in our Bonanza to Oregon on many occasions for vacations and fishing. Dad finally delivered Oliver's Ashes to the planned area in the Pacific Ocean between the Golden Gate Bridge and the Farallon Islands beyond San Francisco from the Bonanza. (My parents, Dad and Step-mother both, also were delivered to sea in Oregon where they had retired) by another friend and QB member, Glenn Plymate. I have a lot of old movies my dad had made (16mm) and I'll go through them and see if any contain Oliver and Mary. It's very possible. Those would've been fairly old - 1940's - 1950's. I don't recall dad with a movie camera after that.. .I will let you know if I find anything... Kindest Regards, Diana Darnaby |
via email from Diana Darnaby, 5-25-06 My Dad was born in 1919, so not an Early Bird...The earliest plane he talked about was when he was an engineer on a Sea Bee. After that he had the Bonanzas. And he won a Piper Cherokee as a door prize at an AOPA convention in Las Vegas one time...but he had the Bonanza so he sold that I have a letter here somewhere - not sure if it was Oliver who wrote it but it was about Oliver not wanting to invest in something as he had limited funds. I'll find that too. And I'll see if any of the old movies had Oliver in them. The movies may be from an earlier time in my Dad's life... I'll have to write again and tell a few more stories...I'm glad to hear Oliver had more relatives and that they are curious about him! And it's Great that You and Alvin are doing so much to keep his history alive! I Thank You for that! Kindest Regards, Diana Darnaby |
via email from Glenn Plymate, 5-27-06 Lars was my sponsor in QB and it was through Lars that I met Oliver. That would have been about 1966. I became a QB in 1969 and my number is 16574. So, Lars would have become a QB sometime in the mid-1960's. I was airport manager of the Oakland International Airport when I first met Oliver and Mary. Before our monthly QB meetings in San Francisco, Mary would set out hors d'oeuvres in their apartment near Lake Merritt in Oakland and several QBs and guests would get together for drinks and snacks for a pre-meeting party. We almost always rode together to the meetings, usually in Lars's car, and brought Oliver home after the meetings. Oliver also had an office at the Oakland Airport, North Field where he kept in touch during the days, and I gave him a place to park near the terminal so he didn't have so far to walk when he came over for lunch. Oliver was always chipper and had a good sense of humor when I knew him. He was a real gentleman. Best regards, Glenn |
|