My paternal grandfather (Salomon Ulrik Åström) was born in Dala, Säbro parish, Sweden May 5th, 1876. He immigrated to the United States, via Ellis Island, in 1913 and went to work for the Smith Lumber Co. in Bay Point, California. His first wife, Anna Eugenia Åström (Söderqvist), followed him a year later but died of tuberculosis in 1921. A couple of years later he married my Grandmother, Sophia Katrina Åström (Brännström). She was born on October 6th, 1878 and immigrated to the US from Sunnanåker, Ytterlännäs parish, Sweden in 1903. Their son, my dad, Carl John Ostrom, was born in Bay Point on February 20th, 1923. Bay Point was renamed Port Chicago in the early 1930’s. They lived at 334 W. Lind St., Port Chicago, California. My maternal Grandfather, Joseph Charles King (aka Chaves) was born on in the Azores November 9th, 1893. He and his family immigrated to Connecticut, USA in 1897. My maternal grandmother, was Ida Margret King (Irish). She was born in Manchester, Connecticut, July 13th, 1897. My mother, Hazel Eleanor King, was born in New Britain, Connecticut, September 7th, 1924. The Kings moved to Concord, California in 1929 and settled in Port Chicago, California in the early 1940's. I have three younger siblings: brother Donald Joseph Ostrom, born February 6th, 1946; sister Debra Marie Ostrom (deceased), born August 15th, 1954; and half-sister Tammy Ann Shelton, born December 14th, 1964.

I was born in San Francisco, California on September 10, 1944 but spent my entire youth in the same town where my father was born – Port Chicago, California.  I graduated from Pacifica High School, West Pittsburg, California in 1962 and joined the United States Air Force in January 1963. After 11 months of technical training, I worked as a Radio Intercept Analyst and served overseas in Samsun, Turkey; Saigon, Vietnam; San Vito, Italy; Frankfurt, Germany; Karamursel, Turkey and state-side duty in San Angelo, Texas; multiple times in San Antonio, Texas and ten years at the Pentagon, in Washington, D.C. where I worked as an Intelligence Analyst on the Air Staff and at the Defense Intelligence Agency.  I completed my Bachelors of Science degree in Business and Management from University of Maryland and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Marymount University in Virginia while on active duty. I retired from the AF as a Chief Master Sergeant with twenty-two years of service. I began my civilian career as a Program Manager with E-Systems, Melpar Division, Falls Church, Virginia.  I worked for E-Systems five years before I joined Booz Allen Hamilton, an international management and technology firm.  I worked at BAH for 17 years.

I married the former Sydney Kay Glaeser of San Antonio, Texas in 1970. Sydney was born in San Antonio, Texas to Otto Alfred Glaeser and Imogene Glaeser (Bell) on December 18th, 1942. We have one daughter, Reagan Leigh Ostrom, who was born in San Antonio, Texas on February 26th, 1976. Reagan married Jason Courtland Payne on April 15th, 2006. We have two grandsons, Cooper John Payne and Campbell William Payne, born May 19th, 2010.
Now that I am retired I enjoy being home with Sydney, walking with our pitbull – Barley, playing golf, collecting Early American Pattern Glass and doing genealogy research.