Apenes, Ola

Ola Rasmus Apenes was born on August 23rd 1898 in the
Norwegian town of Fredrikstad. He received his training as an
engineer at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule in Zurich
during 1917—1923. After serving in various appointments with
Swedish, Norwegian and North American industrial concerns in
the electricity branch, he was from 1929 attached to the L. M.
Ericsson Telephone Company Ltd (Compania de Telefonos Ericsson,
S. A.) in Mexico City.
His spare time in Mexico Apenes with untiring energy devoted
to archaeological and ethnographical study. Himself a trained
mathematician, he conceived an intense interest in Mayan chronology,
and in Ethnos he has published three articles on that
special subject. Lake Texcoco and its surrounding district formed
in latter years his particular field of research, and there he made
several important archaeological discoveries and carried out valuable
detailed studies. We were here able to publish a manuscript of his
— presumably one of the last he ever wrote — a by-product of
his extensive preparations for a work on the history and ethnography
of the lake district. In addition, it should not be forgotten
that Apenes gave much time and labour to the study of early maps
of the Valley of Mexico and that he had himself compiled an
excellent map, a detail of which is here reproduced.
Ola Apenes was of a retiring disposition, and lived solely for his
work and his studies along with a narrow circle of friends. For
these, and for all who had come into contact with his sterling
personality, his tragic death constituted a deeply-felt loss. He had
only recently severed all ties that connected him with his second
fatherland, Mexico, and was preparing himself to devote his life
and his powers to the liberation of Norway. Even before he had
time to complete his preliminary course of instruction, he was
carried off by illness in his training camp in Canada. Even among
his comrades in the new environment his valuable qualities made
themselves felt and appreciated, and letters from them bear witness
of the void he left behind in their midst.
S. L. (Sigvald Linné, Obituary i Ethnos 1944:I, s. 43)