Western music sounds softly from the satellite television channel as Helen Nielsen wakes her husband Daryl up from his afternoon nap

Western music sounds softly from the satellite television channel as Helen Nielsen wakes her husband Daryl up from his afternoon nap. “Mom, will you get my hearing aid,” Daryl says, preparing for his interview.

Though many newcomers to the Valley might not recognize Daryl and Helen, their contributions and memories of Solvang, as well as the entire Valley, are invaluable. “I remember when the Santa Ynez River was one of the most fabulous trout springs in California,” Daryl says. “The local school went ahead and made May 1 a fishing holiday, since that day everyone was fishing anyway.” Though fishing in the river can be illegal these days because of private property rights, Daryl smiles when talking about his memories of an even quainter Solvang.

Daryl and Helen were both born in Solvang in 1922. Helen’s family moved to Iowa when she was just an infant and moved back to Solvang when she was 14 years old. “We met in high school,” Helen says. “We were high school sweethearts. But after 64 years, we’re just sweethearts.”

Daryl is a WWII veteran. He also worked on his uncle’s dairy farm when they still existed in the Valley. He also had a blossoming career as a Danish folk musician with The Cuckoos. Now his son Dan Jr. manages the family-owned motel business. 

Both Daryl and Helen are awe-stricken by the transitions the Valley has undergone since they were young. “I remember when there were only about four or five stores in the entire Solvang,” Helen says.

Daryl even recalls how tourism first got started in Solvang. “All the tourism started in the 1950s after the Saturday Evening Post printed an article about small towns and featured Solvang,” Daryl says. “Since then, Solvang [has become] a tourist mecca.”

Though Daryl is 85 years old now, he can still recall enlisting in WWII, working as Solvang’s mayor in 1954, before it became its own township, and needing his father’s permission to marry Helen because it was illegal for a man to marry under the age of 21. Together, Daryl and Helen bore four children, with their youngest son dying of leukemia at the age of 5. Their youngest daughter, Linda, heads the Solvang Chamber of Commerce. Daryl and Helen’s two other children, Dan Jr. and Sharon, also live close by.

“It’s amazing to see all the changes Santa Ynez is going through,” Helen says. While Daryl, comedic and fun-hearted as ever, says, “The thing I remember most about the Valley is my wife. And I couldn’t get shed of it.”