Betzy Dahl was born to Eugene Dahl (born 1891) and Olaug Larsen (1896-1986) in Harstad Norway. She grew up in a small town, and according to neighbors was glamorous and "looked like a movie star."
Betzy left her hometown in the 1950s, going to Paris and kept traveling to far-flung locations - from New York to Los Angeles and San Francisco and Mexico. Then in the 1970s, she returned home.
When she returned home, she had changed and isolated herself from others. She showed signs of what some considered mental illness but no one really knew what exactly was wrong.
Betzy eventually ended up in a nursing home and died there in 2014, alone. At one point she had a fair amount of money but that was gone. At her funeral the small town wondered what had happened to the glamorous woman who everyone adored.
A Norwegian tv show told the story of Betzy's life, and as it turns out, she might have changed so dramatically because she had a child either shortly before she left Harstad or while travelling abroad which she gave up for adoption. See Norwegian TV show - Betzy's story to read a transcript of the t.v. show.
About Betzy's travels around the world:
A New York passenger list shows a Betzy Dahl arrived on January 15th 1957 at Idlewild Airport in New York from Mexico, and then might have travelled to Paris France. Then on May 7th 1959 there is a record of Betsy arriving in Los Angeles California via the airline SAS and shows a US address for Mrs. McCain at 1411 Hyde Street in San Francisco.
The 1930's were a decade of severe stress: the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, the rise of Nazism. But it was also the end of Prohibition, the beginning of the change of land management (poor farm ...
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