Valborg Olson, of Montevideo, died on Friday, January 13, 2012 at the Luther Haven Nursing Home in Montevideo at the age of 88. Funeral services will be conducted on Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 1:30 P.M. at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Montevideo with Rev. Christopher Lieske officiating. Interment will be in Sunset Memorial Cemetery. Visitation will be Wednesday afternoon and evening with the family present from 5 - 7 P.M. and with a prayer service at 5:00 P.M. at the Anderson Funeral Home in Montevideo. The Mother's Almanac, a book about mothering, says "there must be a special place in heaven for mothers of three boys." If that is true then Valborg Olson will occupy a very exalted place indeed. First, as a teenager, Valborg helped raise a sister and four younger brothers after their mother died when she was only 15 years old. Then, a generation later, she raised four sons of her own on a farm in rural Montevideo. Valborg Gudrun Holm was born on Nov. 13, 1923 on the family farm in rural Hawley, MN, to Alf and Thea (Holte) Holm, both children of Norwegian immigrant families. She was baptized at Lysne Lutheran Church in rural Hawley. In 1926 the family moved to Bemidji, where they lived for a short time before moving in 1928 to Moorhead, where she spent the rest of her childhood. She was confirmed at Trinity Lutheran Church in Moorhead. Her mother died in 1939 when she was 15 and, as the oldest child at home, she helped her father with the younger children. Two years later, her father went to Alaska to help build the Alaskan Highway, leaving her to raise a younger sister and four brothers single-handedly at the age of 17, developing skills she would put to good use a generation later. She graduated from Moorhead High School in 1941, the last class before World War II and attended Moorhead State College for two years, majoring in music. In 1943 she joined the war effort in California and became a "Rosie the Riveter," first building aircraft for the military at Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica and later steel containers and drums at Rheem Manufacturing Company in Richmond, near San Francisco, until the end of the war in 1945. While she worked there, Rheem published a photo of her and a group of young women in its newsletter with a story that read: "This smiling, happy gang that turns out pails in the Richmond plant has reason to be proud. In a check-up of past and present production figures, we find that these workers bettered the previous men's record by more than 10%." She lived and worked in Nevada and New Jersey for a short time before moving to Texas. In the early 1950s, she returned to Fargo/Moorhead where she went to work preparing meals for Northwest Airlines. On March 11, 1954 she was united in marriage to Jule Louis Olson of Montevideo and settled with him on a farm fifteen miles east of Montevideo that Mr. Olson had taken over from his deceased father. They lived there almost eighteen years and raised four sons, Jeffrey, David, Gary and Neal. In 1971, they built a house in Montevideo, where they have lived ever since. She also worked for almost ten years as a dietary aide at Luther Haven in Montevideo. Valborg came from a musical family and had a lifetime passion for music, especially classical, that she shared with her children and grandchildren. She played piano and organ and was piano teacher for several years while living on the farm. She was an avid crocheter and has crocheted many afghans for family and friends. She was renowned for her expertise in making pies, lefse and other Scandinavian treats. All agreed her lefse was without equal. Both sides of her family were from the Hallingdal Valley of Norway and she took great pride in her Norwegian heritage. She had an adventurous streak and traveled twice to the developing world to visit her son David and his family - to Mali in West Africa in 1990 and to Paraguay in South America in 2000. She was a lifetime Lutheran and a former member of Trinity Lutheran Church of Havelock Township and, since 1971, of St. Paul Lutheran Church of Montevideo. She has served in various volunteer church positions at the two churches including Sunday school pianist, teacher and superintendent. Valborg is survived by her husband Jule; four sons and daughter-in-laws: Jeffrey and Karen Olson of Northfield, MN, David and Josephine Olson of Takoma Park, MD, Gary and Lynn Olson of White Bear Lake, MN, and Neal Olson and Amy Wilton of Hope, ME; nine grandchildren: Scott (and wife Amy), Pamela, Jennifer (and husband Tim), Daniel, Emmaline, Hannah, Joshua, Emma and Nigel; and three great-grandchildren, Kaitlin, Thea and Finn. She was preceded in death by her parents; two sisters, Alta and Jeanne, and four brothers, Arne, Elmo, Jerome and Phillip. She survived all of her six siblings, including five who were younger than she. She outlived her youngest sibling, Phillip, by seventeen years.