Discovering The Mature Lifestyle
Music, Lions keep Eden Prairie veteran active and happy Page 7
Veterans May Issue
May 14, 2015
WWII vet from Golden Valley has 33-year record of volunteering BY SUE WEBBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Ole Aho was a student at Dunwoody Institute in Minneapolis when he was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II. He spent 35 months in the South Pacific. “I was a mechanical draftsman by trade,” said Aho, a 97-year-old resident of Golden Valley. “Evidently they wanted somebody like that. I spent my time in the service with a pencil. I was just lucky I knew how to use a pencil.” Aho was born in Finland and lived there until he came to the Twin Cities in 1929, at the age of 11. He lived on Glenwood Avenue, which he said then was called “Finn Town U.S.A.,” and attended Harrison Elementary School, Lincoln Junior High and North High School. His Army company was stationed on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. “We didn’t see any action,” he said. “We took care of the Corps of Engineers equipment.” On the north side of the island, where many Japanese ships had been beached for some time, Aho said, the American soldiers made a discovery. “There was equipment on the ships for our use in the machine shops,” Aho said. “It was kind of ironic. We used material from their troop ships. It came in handy for our company.” From the Solomon Islands, Aho’s company went to the Philippines.
When he got out of the Army, Aho returned to work as a mechanical draftsman. He spent 42 years at Onan prior to retiring in January 1982. Since he retired 33 years ago, Aho has volunteered twice a week at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Minneapolis. “I enjoy it,” he said. One of his early jobs was cutting wood for patients to use in occupational therapy. Now, Aho said, “I do a lot of filing and traveling through the hospital. I do some other paper work.” Katy Ryan, director of voluntary community resource services at the Minneapolis VA, said a total of 1,975 volunteers donate their services to the VA. “We are very blessed; we have a large program with a lot of dedicated volunteers,” Ryan said. In addition to Aho, 26 other VA volunteers are over the age of 90. “They are some of our most dedicated volunteers; they’re very reliable,” Ryan said. “The majority will tell you that one of their secrets of longevity is staying busy and volunteering, giving of themselves to others.” Aho currently volunteers in the engineering department, Ryan said, but he also has worked in physical medicine, rehab, recreational therapy, prosthetics and sensory aids. Aho has amassed a total of 11,619 volunteer hours. “At our last awards ceremony in June 2014, he got a silver bowl for hitting the 10,000 Ole Aho is pictured on Solomon Islands, where he was stationed during World War II. VOLUNTEERING - TO PAGE 4 (Submitted photo)