Inger Krogh Sites' Obituary
Inger Krogh Sites was bom in Oslo, Norway, on March 2,1922 -- daughter of Norwegian operatic tenor Erling Krogh and his Danish wife, Astrid Philip. She finished two artium studies during WW1I, later specializing in English/American literature at the University of Oslo. When Allied forces liberated Norway at the end of that war, she worked with them as a Norwegian-English-German interpreter. For this service, she was awarded in 1946 a scholarship to Kalamazoo College in Michigan, thereby becoming Norway’s first postwar international exchange student.
Later in 1946, Inger married a former US Merchant Marine officer, James N. Sites, who was then studying journalism at Wayne University in Detroit. She worked at the Detroit Public Library for five years before moving to Washington, DC, meanwhile continuing her studies. Finally, in 1957 she received her MA in Library Science from Catholic University in Washington, DC. She went on to work as a librarian in that city, as a tour guide for overseas visitors to the Capital and as a * teacher of Norwegian at the US Foreign Service Institute (1979-1992) to US diplomats assigned to Norway.
Inger’s Master’s thesis, fittingly centered on a unique compendium of Norwegian literature available in the English language. She is now the guiding spirit behind a trust - the Erling Krogh Legat - set up at the Norwegian Opera in Oslo to help young singers at the beginning of their careers.
Inger has also been closely involved in the several key communications jobs that came to be held by her husband, including Washington reporting, editing a major US magazine, directing national PR/political campaigns and government service during the Ford Presidency. These six decades of inside-America experiences form the basis of a 336-page book authored by Mr. Sites in 2006 entitled INGER! A Modern-Day Viking Discovers America. *
Inger and her husband have two sons, James Philip Sites, an attorney who is Norway’s Honorary Consul in Billings, Montana, and Erik Krogh Sites, who teaches in Oslo. The couple makes home in Oslo, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and Bonita Springs, Florida.
Services will be held in Oslo, Norway.
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