Eivor Asklin was an important figure within Svenska Lottakåren (Swedish Women’s Voluntary Defence Service), particularly in her role as Secretary-General of the association during the years 1967-1972.

Eivor Asklin was born in 1913 into a pharmacist’s family in Stockholm and received her education at the Normal school for girls, a preparatory school for teacher training. She graduated in 1930. The following year she attended the Collège Féminin de Bouffémont, a boarding school in Paris, where the daughters of the elite went to perfect their French, as well as learning the art of conversation and how to comport themselves in social situations. In 1938 she married Gunnar Asklin, then Captain in the Swedish Air Force and son of Countess Louise Lewenhaupt and naval and district physician Victor Asklin. They had three children together: Christer and Catharina, and their foster son Olle Bergdahl. The latter joined the Asklin family as a Finnish child refugee during the Second World War.

In 1947 Eivor Asklin joined the Uppsala section of the Flyglottakår (Women’s Voluntary Air Corps), a local division of the Uppland Women’s Voluntary Defence Service. The Flyglottakår brought together female defence volunteers in the Uppsala region to inform them on air defence as well as catering, medical care and telephony for the air force. Eivor Asklin was active in the Flyglottakår for over a decade and held various posts including head of catering, head of entertainment, and deputy-director of the corps. At the same time she also undertook further training within the corps and participated in air defence and squadron exercises. Further, she was head “lotta” at various military schools for girls. Eivor Asklin subsequently went on to become association secretary for the Uppland “lotta” service, and in 1962 she was recruited to the national association’s head office as director of information. In connection with this appointment she was described in the members’ magazine Lottanytt as “a knowledgeable, energetic and happy lotta who is gifted with two invaluable features, namely the ability to reach out to people and to spread happiness in the work environment”. When she, in March 1967, succeeded Berit Berg von Linde as the national association secretary-general, Lottanytt asserted that Eivor Asklin needed no introduction given that “she is known both within and far beyond SLK [the Swedish Women’s Voluntary Defence Service]”.

In her role as secretary-general Eivor Asklin served as administrative head of personnel at the national office and worked closely with the national “lotta” leader.

Eivor Asklin held the post of secretary-general until 1972. She was awarded the Swedish “lotta” corps’ Royal Gold Medal of honour along with the Royal Order of the Vasa for her services to the “lotta” movement.

After having left the “lotta” movement, Eivor Asklin continued her voluntary commitment by joining the Fredrika Bremer Association circle in Ängelholm, for which she was the president 1975-1976, and by joining the Ängelholm Art Association and the Uppland Art Association. She was secretary of the former between 1975 and 1978 and of the latter from 1983 until her death.

Eivor Asklin died in Uppsala in 1994.