Raymond Bergstrom: A surfer’s first and only board becomes a museum piece

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At the end of the third paragraph of Raymond Oscar Bergstrom’s lengthy paid obituary notice in today’s Times, there’s an “only in California” moment: The engineer donated a wooden surfboard he built as a teen to the Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum.

In a 1936 wood shop class at Los Angeles High School, Bergstrom made his “first and only” surfboard, according to the museum’s winter 2007 newsletter. With a neighbor, he formed a surfing club, braved the ocean in winter without benefit of a wetsuit but left behind the waves in 1941 to serve in the Air Force during World War II.
Although he surfed briefly after the war, “family duties” sent the more than 11-foot board to the garage, where it sat unused for 52 years, until he donated it to the museum in 2001.

Bergstrom, a longtime resident of San Marino, died Oct. 5 at 93.

-- Valerie J. Nelson