Bjorn Hoyer

God’s grace will now give him peace.

Bjorn’s sweet sense of humor and funny antics that made people smile to the very end will now be shared with angels in heaven. Struggles early in life made his ability to have fun even more extraordinary.

Bjorn was born in Trondheim, Norway, Sept. 29, 1924, losing his father to an early death and his mother to a new marriage, leaving him with his adored maternal grandmother, Elina Andal, to raise him.

He witnessed the loss of friends and family captured by Nazis during WWII and learned street smarts to survive during Norway’s occupation, learning tricks such as trading local moonshine with young Nazi soldiers in return for basics such as sugar and flour, which were scarce. He remembered dishes and knickknacks falling and breaking in his house when German howitzers were fired just beyond the front door. He survived a severed artery in his left arm while working in a lumber mill, a job the Nazis forced him to do. Bjorn was always grateful for the Russian surgeon who reattached the artery, a surgeon who was later sent to a concentration camp where he died.

After the war and the Nazi occupation of Norway ended, Bjorn joined the Norwegian Air Force. Then he married the love of his life, Inga Kilavik, in 1951 in the Nidaros Domkirke in Trondheim. He encouraged her to quit her bookkeeping job so they could travel to the U.S. where he earned his engineering degree at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Norway’s universities could not accept the onslaught of students at the time.

Inga’s fate as his decider for life began after graduation when she insisted on staying in the U.S. because of abundant housing and freedom, which were limited in Norway after WW II. He was a reluctant immigrant to the U.S. and remained proud of his Norwegian heritage to the end.

Bjorn spent nearly 23 years working as a mechanical engineer at Delco Electronics in Kokomo, Indiana. He and Inga later moved to Sarasota, Florida, enjoying 31 years of sun, beaches and fishing. He worked for THERM-O-TYPE Corp., in Nokomis, Florida, until the age of 75. Bjorn and Inga were proud of the 23 cruises they took during their retirement years.

He is survived by three children: Karin (Bill) Schwanbeck in Middletown, Connecticut; Grete (Doyle) Letson in Novi, Michigan; and Ted (Leslie) Hoyer in Stone Mountain, Georgia; and three grandchildren, Laura and Sarah Letson, and Elizabeth Hoyer.

The family wishes to thank the care managers, nurses, primary care doctor and staff at Lilburn’s Sunrise assisted living facility for their extreme patience, compassion and diligence.

Funeral service will be private. Burial of ashes will be at Palms-Robarts Memorial Park in Sarasota, Florida, at the time of his wife’s burial.

Arrangements under the direction of Eternal Hills Funeral Home, Snellville, GA.