Asta Ödman was born in Gothenburg and was a sculptor and artist.
Ödman studied under Sten Teodorsson and during her studies she became friends with Inger Manne, with whom she painted for many years.
In the early 1960s, Ödman studied under Fritz Gahn and was a member of a group of artists who sculpted, drew and painted.
Ödman had a number of exhibitions of her own. She was also posthumously represented with several works in Norrköping Art Museum's collection exhibition "Women Artists" from 2013.
In Norrköping, there are also public works created by Asta Ödman, for example in the town hall and the De Geerhallen concert hall.
Image description: Asta Ödman with sculptures. Photo: Mikael Strand. The photo was first published in Norrköpings TidningarThe image is cropped]. Click here for an uncropped image
Victor Clifton Martyn, known as Topper Martyn, was born in England and was a juggler and illusionist. In the 1960s Martyn settled in Uppsala with his wife.
Topper Martyn made his stage debut in 1938 as a juggler and had a mixed program of juggling, comedy and magic. Martyn received several honors and awards for his artistry. In 1970 he became world champion in comic magic in Amsterdam.
In 1996 Martyn was honored with the English Carlton Comedy Prize. He has received the French Mandrake d'or award and a gold medal from Asahi Television (Japan).
In addition to performing in 30 different countries, he played the role of the magician in the children's musical Alfons och trollkarlen, based on Gunilla Bergström's book Hokus Pokus Alfons Åberg. Topper Martyn also appeared in TV productions, such as SVT's Christmas calendar from 1984 - Julstrul med Staffan & Bengt.
Burial site: 0406-0001 (Memorial grove in the Old Cemetery)
Image description: Topper Martyn, year unknown. Photo: Swedish Magic Archive. [The image is cropped] Click here for an uncropped image
Lars Erstrand was one of the great names in Swedish jazz in the 20th century. He became "Mister Swing" with the jazz public and was a big name in both Swedish and international jazz.
He started playing piano but switched to vibraphone after being influenced by vibraphonist Lionel Hampton's playing in Benny Goodman's orchestra.
From the 1960s onwards, Erstrand worked with clarinettist Ove Lind.
His international breakthrough came in the 1970s when he played with Benny Goodman and later with clarinetists Bob Wilber and 'Peanuts' Hucko.
Lars Erstrand also performed with Sven Asmussen and Alice Babs, and from the 1990s played with Arne Domnerus and in the quartet Swedish Swing Society.
Ebba Ruzsica Sörbom was born Ruzsica Schreiber to a Jewish family in Novi Sad, former Yugoslavia. As a child she spoke German, Hungarian and Serbian.
In 1944, Sörbom was taken to a concentration camp where his mother and younger brother were gassed. Despite everything, Sörbom survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen and came to Sweden in 1945.
She studied drama at Uppsala University, worked with drama therapy at Ulleråker Hospital and provided information about the Holocaust in schools.
In 1994, Sörbom received a cultural scholarship from Uppsala Municipality and in 1997 a scholarship from the Swedish Writers' Fund to study at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Vienna.
Her debut book Bortom minnet, bortomglömskan was published in 1988. Through her poetry, Ebba Sörbom has reflected personal memories of the concentration camps and given voice to the survivors.
Margit Sahlin was one of Sweden's first three female priests and was ordained in 1960 after the Church of Sweden opened its doors to female priests by a decision of the Church Council and a new law was passed in 1958 and came into force in 1959.
Before that, she had acquired a broad academic background and defended her doctoral thesis in Romance languages on the ecclesiastical dance and the folk dance song, La Carole médiévale et ses rapports avec l´église (The Medieval Dance and its Relations with the Church ). As early as 1940, her thesis was interdisciplinary.
Sahlin initiated the creation of the Catherine Foundation and was its director for a total of 34 years. The Foundation is described as a meeting place for dialogue between church and society.
Sahlin was secretary of the Central Council of the Church of Sweden from 1945 to 1970 and was awarded an honorary doctorate in theology in Uppsala in 1978.
In the 1970s, she was also vicar of the Engelbrekt parish in Stockholm. She pioneered the formation of diocesan women's councils around the country and their umbrella organization, the Church Women's Council (now Women in the Church of Sweden).
Among the many books Margit Sahlin has written are Evangelization (1947), Man and Woman in Christ's Church (1950), The Ministry of the Word in a Changing World (1959), Time for a Rethink (1980), With Peter (1982), What God is Like (1985), The Secret Book. Reading the Bible Today (1994) and Jesus. The Secret of God (1999).
The Margit Sahlin Academy was established in 2015 and is a platform for the exchange of views between research, society, culture and the church in the spirit of Margit Sahlin.
Image description: Margit Sahlin at her summer house in Dalarna, unknown year. Photo: Ulf Palm. [The image is cropped] Click here for an uncropped image
In 1956, Sonja Lyttkens became the second woman in Sweden to receive a doctorate in mathematics for a thesis on harmonic analysis.
In 1963, she became the country's first university lecturer in mathematics, a position she held until 1984. Lyttkens was also committed to improving the conditions for women in academia.
In addition to her work, Lyttkens devoted herself to watercolor painting and had already had several exhibitions before her retirement. Her watercolors are represented at the National Arts Council.
As late as 1986, Lyttkens published a work: General Tauberian Theorems Connected with a Theorem of Korenblum. After retirement, Lyttkens devoted himself entirely to his watercolor painting.
For the first four years, Hans Rosling lived in the Luthagen district, after which the family moved to Svartbäcken in Uppsala. After graduating from high school, Rosling studied statistics and medicine at Uppsala University. During a trip to Asia in 1972, his interest in public health led to a course in social medicine at St. John's Medical College in Bangalore, India.
After graduating in 1975 and working as an intern in Hudiksvall, he furthered his education and gained expertise in tropical medicine at Uppsala University in 1977.
From 1979 to 1981, the Roslings worked in Nacala Porto in northern Mozambique, where Hans was a district doctor and his wife Agneta a midwife. In 1981, an epidemic of a previously unknown spastic paralysis disease broke out in the Nacala district, affecting more than 1,500 people, mostly women and children. The paralysis was linked to a very aggressive and highly monotonous diet consisting of a toxic form of cassava.
Rosling described the disease in his doctoral thesis and named it Konzo. This means 'bound bones' in the Congolese language where the disease was once described in 1938. During the 1980s, there were several Konzo outbreaks in other African countries.
From 1983 to 1996, Rosling worked as a teacher and researcher at Uppsala University in collaboration with several universities in Africa and Asia. In 1997 he was appointed Professor of International Health at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
In 1999, Rosling began lecturing with a new kind of animated bubble chart that showed the socio-economic state of the world and trends over time. The program was called Trendalyzer and had been developed by his son and son's wife, with whom he co-founded the Gapminder Foundation.
The lectures made complex statistics on world developments understandable to the public, policy makers and opinion leaders. The lectures were broadcast via the Web and TV all over the world, and governments and organizations hired him as a lecturer and advisor.
Rosling devoted his professional life to global health, global health problems, and how these are related to poverty. With the conviction that reason and knowledge improve the world and that with it we can eradicate extreme poverty and reduce carbon emissions, Rosling pointed out that it is the richest billion of the world's population that must first and foremost reduce carbon emissions because they account for half of them.
Hans Rosling's memoirs How I Learnedto Understand the World, written with journalist Fanny Härgestam, were published posthumously in 2017 and Factfulness, written in collaboration with Ola and Anna Rosling Rönnlund, was published in 2018.
Viktor Persson, nicknamed "Bok-Viktor", was a well-known antiquarian bookseller and a well-known Uppsala profile. Viktor Persson lived on Övre Slottsgatan in Uppsala and in his small apartment he shared the space with his aquariums and many books.
In the 1950s, with the support of his father, archaeologist Axel W Persson, he established an antiquarian bookshop at Drottninggatan 3 near Politiska knuten called Bokfenix, which became a meeting place for book lovers and students. This led to Persson later becoming known as "Bok-Viktor" and in many ways he lived up to the name as he had a huge collection and knew exactly where the books were located.
Viktor Persson in his bookshop on Drottninggatan in Uppsala. Photo: Rolf Nodén. Taken from an almanac printed by RK tryck in 2003.
Viktor Persson in his "second" Bokfenix. Photo: From private collection.
Persson published a number of joke books and other curiosities in mini format on his own publishing house and the bestseller was Svenska invektiv (1963), a list of swear words that was sold in seven editions over three years.
In May 1980, the 18th century house that housed the antiquarian bookshop burned down, but the most valuable books escaped the flames. Bokfenix eventually moved to the corner of Skolgatan-Rundelsgränd.
Image description: Viktor Persson outside his antiquarian bookshop on Drottninggatan in Uppsala, probably 1950s-1960s. Photo: From private collectionThe image is cropped] Click here for an uncropped image
Mari Simmulson was born in St. Petersburg to Estonian parents and trained as a sculptor at the Tallinn State Art Academy. In the 1930s she trained at the Finnish porcelain factory Arabia.
In 1944, Simmulson moved to Sweden and began working with Wilhelm Kåge at the Gustavsberg porcelain factory. Mari Simmulson worked at Gustavsberg until 1949 and then returned to Upsala Ekeby where her most remembered production was created.
Characteristic of Simmulson's art are imaginative, colorful and decorative figures, vases and reliefs as well as freely sculptural pieces, such as the "Balinese", which was quickly sold out and the "boy on the turtle", which was produced for many years.
Simmulson also carried out major decorative commissions, and several of her works are exhibited at Uppsala Konstmuseum.
"Mari Simmulson demonstrates the new collection of chamotte ware", Presenta AB, Östra Ågatan 39, Uppsala 1959. Photo: Uppsala-Bild / Upplandsmuseet.
Barrel made by Mari Simmulson around 1950. Square with rounded corners and sides. Earthenware with white bottom glaze and decoration in pastel colors. Photo: Olle Norling / Upplandsmuseet.
Burial site: 0406-0001 (Memorial grove in the Old Cemetery)
Image description: Mari Simmulson, Uppsala 1960. Photo: Uppsala-Bild / Upplandsmuseet. [The image is cropped] Click here for an uncropped image
