To me, cooking is an awful lot of work just so I can eat. People are often baffled by this. What on earth do I eat, they want to know. I “graze” a lot, snacking on this and that, or I’ll boil some pasta or throw a frozen pizza in the oven and dinner’s served! I don’t have kids, so I never had to learn out of necessity.

These women I had in my life though – they could also bake circles around the competition, though I’m not sure why baking gets a name separate from cooking…to me it’s all the same. You’re in the kitchen, manipulating ingredients in a certain way.

The times I do fire up the oven or turn on a burner with real ambition, it’s because I want to connect to tradition and heritage. For a while I was on a pannukakku kick. I’d eat it three times a day, with syrup, until it was gone. I’ll make a pan of rhubarb crisp at the start of every summer, and bake some zucchini bread a couple months later. I’ll even pickle beets in the fall, since I did take up gardening and canning thanks to my grandmothers. And several times a year, I’ll make a batch of pasties.

Neither of my grandmas left their go-to recipes behind. Was this on purpose? Or had they made these things so many times, there wasn’t a need to have it written down anymore? Lillian did all her cooking and baking using a wood-fired cookstove. Her pasties took up a lot of space on a plate, but were fairly flat, and she made a one-crust pasty too, in a large, enamelware pan. The crust was made with lard, not too flaky nor too dense, just right and exquisite. She sliced her carrots into thin coins, her potatoes into large chips. The rutabaga was diced, the onion shredded. She used hamburger for the meat, something pretty standard.

I don’t recall Ina’s pasties. By the time I was registering that sort of thing, she’d retired and moved to South Range, where for over twenty years she was part of the VFW Range Lounge’s pasty making crew. Those were “her” pasties, and we ate them every time they made them, perhaps once a month. They were tasty too, everything diced into small cubes, but the meat could be gristly.

That job Ina retired from - she did the baking for the Hancock Public School’s hot lunch program. If you ate the homemade cinnamon rolls or pizza at that school in the 1970s to early 80s, know that Ina had her hands all over that dough. Prior to her gig as a lunch lady, she baked at the Toivola Lunch Restaurant and spent several summers cooking at a restaurant in Copper Harbor. She was a master baker, unofficially. You’d think that on her own time she would have preferred to leave her work behind, yet at home she was always baking. Her house perpetually smelled like there was either something in or recently out of the oven.

I made pasties for the first time when I was in my early forties, when I started experiencing a surge of nostalgia and appreciation for my Finnish American heritage. Based off of what I’d heard elsewhere, probably social media, I expected it to be an all-day operation. It wasn’t. More like four hours for what amounted to ten pasties. It was hard work though, especially rolling out the dough and slicing the rutabaga!

I chose to go off a recipe from A Taste of Toivola published in 1997. Where better to find a dependable pasty recipe than a cookbook put together by a bunch of Finnish American women, of which Grandma Lillian was a contributor? In this instance though, I turned to a one Marjorie Kangas, and I’ll include her recipe at the end of this post. Right off the bat though, a stumbling block: the very first sentence stated Prepare crust as for pie crust. Err. I flipped through the pages but found nothing for pie crust. Clearly these women had done some serious baking, and therefore assumed we all have a pie crust recipe permanently lodged in our heads. So I turned to the internet and yes, I know you can buy frozen ready-made crusts from the grocery store…if you can live with the shame.

I mixed the dough by hand because I don’t have an electric mixer and even if I did, I wouldn’t want to have to deal with washing it after. The dough needs to be chilled, so these days I prep it the day before, wrapping with cling wrap and leaving it in the fridge overnight.

The next step was to prep the ingredients for the filling. I don’t eat meat, haven’t since I was a kid. I wouldn’t know how to pick out the right meat at the grocery store. Don’t judge me. Marjorie suggests hamburger, and from there it continues traditional: potatoes, carrots, onion, rutabaga, and salt and pepper. It’s amazing how such a short, basic list of ingredients can make something so delicious.

I have Lillian’s Pyrex mixing bowl set in the pink Gooseberry pattern, and over time I’ve found that if I nearly fill the largest of those bowls with the combined ingredients, I’ll have have enough for ten pasties. I follow Marjorie’s measurements for the dough, but go my own way with the amounts of everything else, generally using two cups of carrots - porkannat if you want to learn some Finnish - sliced into coins a quarter inch thick. I dice up one medium-sized yellow onion, sipuli, pausing a few times to leave the room for a bit, tears streaming down my face.

The rutabaga, lanttu…first, I find it amazing that even the local Walmart carries them. I like to think that’s a local thing, strictly based on demand - that you can’t just walk into any old Walmart and expect to find rutabagas. A woman once posted a question to a Finnish culture site that I follow, looking for tips to make cutting up rutabaga easier. One wise guy asked whether she owned a wood splitter. First you have to slice off the wax coating, then use all your strength to hack in. Your wrists will be angry; your fingers may start to cramp. The dicing comes easy after that, two cups worth. I never measure the potatoes, perunat, I just buy a five pound bag, reds if I can find them, and start peeling and dicing until they fill the remainder of the bowl. This might make my pasties a bit heavy on potatoes for some people, but not for me. Then there’s the challenging bit about seasoning with salt and pepper, suolaa ja pippuri. Marjorie provided no advice in terms of the teaspoon, clearly a “season to taste” situation. The first time, I didn’t add enough salt. Now I know to add with care, chewing some of the raw carrots and potatoes until it tastes right. The pepper? I enjoy a little heat, so it’s hard to overdo it.

After separating the chilled dough into individual balls about the size of a baseball, you need to get rolling pretty quick before they get too warm. Cold dough isn’t pliable; warm dough sticks too much. Generally I put half of them in the fridge while working the first half. My next error came in not knowing to liberally dust with flour while rolling out the dough. There was a frustrating amount of stickiness, for which flour is your friend. I always use Ina’s well-seasoned rolling pin; I channel her every time I make pasties. I like to think she’s there with me, smiling, pleased.

Throw some flour on the counter. Squash that dough ball down hard, sprinkle flour on top, then roll once forward, once back, once left and then right…then start working in all directions to form something vaguely circular. Don’t worry about perfection, and don’t be afraid to dust on more flour.

I add about a cup of filling per crust. Dump it on the bottom half, fold the top half over, dip your fingers in some water, and start crimping - fold the edge up and pinch with your index finger and thumb to create the indentations as you make your way across from left to right in one smooth, continual motion. I did this by instinct and you may have other suggestions, but lose your confidence and rhythm and you’re screwed if your goal is a visually-perfect pasty. You think you’re going to backtrack and re-crimp some of your mistakes? Good luck. For a little extra flavor, you can also add a pat of butter to the filling before you seal the pasty off. I mention it now because I usually think of it at this point, when it’s too late.

About half-way through all that dough, five pasties in, my wrists, elbows, shoulders, back, and abs start complaining. My hair starts to fall loose from its clip and I break a sweat, but there’s no coffee break to be had. I soldier through - making pasties is right up the alley of hardworking Finns.

I always cut a few small vent holes atop each pasty with a knife, fanning them out in a visually pleasing way. Then onto the baking sheet they go, three per sheet. While they’re in the oven, it’s a great time to clean up. The potato and carrot peelings and any extra rutabaga go in the compost pile. If you end up with leftover dough, wrap it up and freeze it for your next batch.

Once out of the oven, don’t forget to take a photo of your pasties to post to social media. If you can wait, let them cool before diving in with that fork. Better yet, chill them overnight and reheat the next day. As with all baked goods, they’ll taste better once the ingredients have had a chance to mingle some more.

I like to enjoy pasties with something on the side that’ll keep my taste buds fully awake – something pickled is always nice. I recommend beets, though if I could have anything in the world, it’d be some of Ina’s mustardy, top-tier chowchow, for which of course she left no recipe behind. You’ll of course need ketchup/catsup…or as my dad would say, cat-chup. I had no idea gravy was a thing until I was in my thirties. I’d led a sheltered life, and in this instance, it was a blessing.

About fifteen years ago, I had my kitchen painted a reddish-purple, the same color my mom painted it when I was little. They say red stimulates appetite, and I like to joke that I did it for the benefit of anyone about to eat my cooking – they’ll need all the help they can get. My pasties are good though. So good, they’re not just for dinner; I’ll feast on them several times a day until they’re gone. ~

That’s the silly way my brother Mike began a poem in our cabin’s journal, an entry dated June of 1989. Oh Misery Bay, indeed. It’s a place deserving of an ode, given the affinity we and the generations before us have had for the bay and the Lake itself, honored here with a capital “L.” The view from atop the dune? Sweeping. The beach sand? Of a quality that squeaks when walked upon with vigor. The driftwood? Perpetually strewn about. And rocks? A delightful assortment that gathers at the waterline.

My great-grandfather, Erik Viitala, was the first of my ancestors to see Misery Bay, arriving by his own small sailboat in 1893 in search of land to homestead. The rest of my great-grandparents followed, with typical Finnish surnames including Kananen, Rantanen, Heikkinen, and Mäkinen. They helped establish the nearby Finnish American farming community of Toivola, Michigan.

Finland is by no means short on lakes, but most are small enough to see across from shore to shore. Not so with Lake Superior. To that “first” generation of Toivola folk, the Lake must have been awe inspiring. It was a means of travel and a source of food, its shore a place to wash up and cool off and gather together for picnics and celebrations.

A number of farmers had boats for netting fish and getting supplies from town, but there was also the occasional excursion, the lighthouse at 14-Mile Point being a popular destination. My grandma Lillian recalled the time her father, Anselm, brought them on his fishing boat and one of the light keepers took them up into the tower to see the Fresnel lens.

My understanding was that early on, the more pious among the community, mostly Apostolic Lutherans, would have gatherings at the mouth of the Misery River. They heard sermons and joined in prayer, gave speeches and sang hymns, and if it was considered more of a picnic, had a little friendly competition and played games. My dad was made to attend as a young boy, a boring experience from his perspective, though there was soda pop and homemade ice cream to be had, which he ate until he got sick. If you were more interested in freedom of expression, perhaps some drinking or music and dancing, the mouth of the Little Elm River was the place to go, about two miles up the shore.

The first cabins along the bay were built from logs joined without much care as to fit, and on land the owners didn’t own. My grandma Ina spent many summer days at the cabin her dad, Kalle Heikkinen, built near the Little Elm River. In the summer of 1929, when she was 14, she mentioned the lakeshore multiple times in her little diary:

With Ma and Pa and Helen to lakeshore for night.

Walked past Lahti’s shore and lit a bonfire…

Swimming – warm water!

Crew to lakeshore, loads of fun, didn’t sleep much, up at 5…

Luukonen girls washed clothes at the Elm.

Us kids drove the truck to shore.

Party at the Elm, home 1:30 AM…

I don’t know that any of the original settlers ever purposely jumped in the lake. They were certainly never seen in swimsuits! The men might have rolled up their pant cuffs and unbuttoned their shirts on a particularly hot day, while the women put on their thinnest short-sleeved housedress to head to the beach. It was the succeeding “second” generation that would take to the water more bodily.

The second generation would also take to building more modern cabins on land legally purchased, though things remained rather rustic in terms of convenience. No one had plumbing, electricity, or a phone line – they had outhouses, kerosene lamps, fireplaces, and appliances that ran on propane. Water was hauled from town or gotten from a nearby spring. Just about everyone had grown up on farms though; luxury wasn’t something they sought.

My Kananen grandparents were able to buy a lakeshore lot in the 1950s, when a stretch of the bay known as Lahti’s Dunes was parceled off, the hundred foot-wide lots selling for $125. Though technically it was Ina’s employer that bought it - she did the baking at the Toivola Lunch Restaurant, owned by Esther and Gus Niemi, and they put up the money, then garnished it from her wages. My grandparents were actually good friends with Esther and Gus, party buddies in fact. Securing nearby neighbors promised all a future of whooping it up together, and they weren’t alone in this motive; apparently a whole slew of Toivola folk had similar intentions. Supposedly these people rarely went down to the beach; they just sat inside boozing it…I mean entertaining. Having escaped the pressure and bustle of town, they could let their hair down in a classy sort of way, dressed in 1950s business casual. Oh, they might make their way to a bench atop the dune to take in the sunset, to make sure the beach was still there, but going down the steep stairs was dangerous business. Good luck trying to climb back up tipsy, with a cigarette in one hand.

In 2019, when the Lake’s level was at an all-time summer high, some of the cabins had to be jacked up and moved away from the dune’s rapidly approaching edge. When I commented to my dad that my grandparents had been wise to build closer to the road than the Lake, he said it was more likely that my grandpa wanted to carry his beer as short a distance as possible. I’m sure that’s an exaggeration, and the truth is that everyone popped down to the beach once in a while. I know a lot of the men liked to cast a line from shore, and a lot of the women liked to hunt for agates. I think everyone enjoyed a good bonfire.

Toivola’s first generation is long gone, and the second now too, but many of the cabins remain in the original families, and the community gathering spots at the river mouths are still open to the public. Stop at the cemetery on your way down and you’ll see driftwood, rocks, and other beach trinkets adorning many of the graves. They’re left there with affection by friends and relatives who well understand the affinity the Toivola people have had over the years for Misery Bay, and the Lake itself, capital “L.”

At its peak, the R.L. Polk Company published over 700 directories nationwide, 41 of those for cities in Michigan. Today, the U.P. might not make the cut, but back in the late 1800s-early 1900s, with the mining and lumber industries thriving, Polk published directories for Escanaba, Sault Ste. Marie, Iron Mountain, Ishpeming/Negaunee, Marquette, and two in the Copper Country: Calumet/Laurium and Hancock/Houghton. Today, they’re a fascinating look back in time and a valuable tool for historians and genealogists.

I have a copy of the 1939 Hancock/Houghton directory, one that clearly saw plenty of use given its worn and stained cover, but made to last with thick paper and a sewn binding. The Hancock portion includes the outlying communities of Ripley, Dollar Bay, Quincy, and Franklin. Flip the book over and you have the Houghton directory including the range towns: South Range, Baltic, Atlantic Mine, Trimountain, and Painesdale.

The information inside is divided into four sections, with different colored paper for each:

1. A combined, alphabetical list of residents and businesses…the white pages.

2. A Directory of Householders, with streets arranged in alphabetical order and the houses in numerical order with their occupants. You could therefore walk down any given street and recite to yourself who lived in each house because it was provided as thus in the Polk.

3. The Buyer’s Guide, featuring paid advertisements.

4. The Business Directory, essentially the yellow pages, listing businesses under descriptive headings, some multiple times for an additional fee. The Exley Company in Hancock, for example, could be found under Auto Repair, Blacksmiths, Machine Shops, and Repair Shops.

All of this information was gathered by canvassing the cities, going door to door to interview people. I’ll assume word quickly got out when the Polk man was in town! A disclaimer found on the copyright page reads: The information in this directory is gathered by an actual canvass and is compiled in a way to insure maximum accuracy. The publishers cannot and do not guarantee the correctness of all the information furnished them nor the complete absence of errors or omissions, hence no responsibility for same can be or is assumed. The publishers earnestly request the bringing to their attention of any inaccuracy so that it may be corrected in the next edition of the directory. Those “next” editions were generally printed every one to two years.

Polk’s goal was to include information on every adult living in the community, though never mind phone numbers since phones were rare in homes prior to the 1940s, and yet uncommon among businesses. What the directory could tell you was where a person lived along with excellent directions, and whether they owned the property or just resided there. You could find out if they were single or married and to whom, and in the case of women, perhaps widowed. Where they worked and what they did was one final delicious tidbit. It was all rather intrusive and potentially shaming, though others likely took pride in their information. It seems there wasn’t a choice of being excluded - Polk got their info on you one way or another.

Not everyone lived at a house assigned a number, and therefore a description was in order. In my neighborhood for instance, a man named Edward Wirtanen lived with his wife Lydia in a home they owned at “ns Shafter 4 w Finn”…a house on the north side of Shafter Street, being the fourth house to the west from the intersection with Finn Street. It’s also interesting to note that Edward’s employment isn’t listed, but his wife worked as a clerk at the A&P Grocery. A married woman working outside the home was rare. Also among the Wirtanens was Elizabeth, a widow to a different Edward, who it appears had four adult children still living at home, none of whom appeared to be employed: John, Lillian, Toivo, and Waino.

The most common jobs for women included maids, waitresses, store clerks, bookkeepers, stenographers, telephone operators, and teachers. Most were single, the teachers for sure. School district policies required women to resign if they got married, though change was on the way, as WWII would create a teacher shortage, making it easier for married women to return to the profession.

A far greater variety of jobs were available to men, though most were listed as laborers, mostly at the mine. Clerks, carpenters, and drivers were also common. Pretty much everyone worked right in town, with no reason nor resources for commuting or working remotely.

Indicative of the time period, the business directory included such categories as boarding houses, coal dealers, tailors, shoe repairers, dressmakers, milliners (hat makers), radio repairing (no TV yet), and railroads.

Among places to buy food and drink, confectionary/candy shops were popular, with six in Hancock, four of them operated out of private homes. The city also accommodated five different bakeries. Among the eleven restaurants/lunchrooms were five “cafes”: the Roma, Suomi, Venice, Kaleva, and Lincoln. Hancock outpaced Houghton in every category, which made sense given Hancock had about 50% more people. There were twenty-two grocers in Hancock, while Houghton had thirteen. Seven were on Quincy Street, four on Summit, three on Ethel, and two on Pine.

Anyone who’s studied Copper Country history, or history just about anywhere else, might guess the popularity of taverns. As my dad liked to say, you needed something “to wash it all down with.” Hancock had fourteen, with five of them on Quincy and four on steep Tezcuco Street. Heading back up that hill after a few quick ones could prove extra challenging. When my brothers were young, they’d still encounter the occasional old-timer sleeping it off on the trail that cut up through the woods from Tezcuco, what was aptly known as Drunker’s Path.

You might think it’d be easy to buy an old Polk directory, but they’re quite rare, partly because they weren’t easy to afford back when they were new. Adjusted for inflation, they were generally priced at several hundred dollars and required a subscription - a promise to buy future editions. The main clientele were the very businesses that paid to be listed inside. If you wanted to look someone up, you had to stop in at one of those businesses and ask to use their copy.

The Polk Company promised to help a reader find “the solution to any of scores of problems that pop up unexpectedly to annoy and baffle you.” Today, they’re a delight to anyone interested in a community’s past. You can find them in local libraries and archives and through online databases like Ancestry. In the Keweenaw, they can be perused by appointment at the MTU Archives, which has an assortment dating from 1895 to 1939.

I’d previously written about the early history of my childhood home here in the Copper Country, about the family who built it - the Salfenauers. You can read that blog post here. What I didn’t know much about at that time was the other family that’d lived here prior to my own, the “in between” Bartas. I’d searched online enough to discover all four of the Barta sons had died, and short of pestering the next generation, left it at that. Then last summer, they came to me.

I was painting the front stairs when I heard a car stop. I didn’t look up, assuming it was someone next door, then a voice, a woman coming up the path…

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Depends on what the question is.”

She wanted to know if I lived here, or if I knew who did. She said her dad had grown up in the house. My first thought was that she was mistaken.

“What was his name?”

“Richard Barta.”

Wow!

That was my introduction to Dorothy, granddaughter to Anna and James Barta, those “in between” owners of my house. We talked for quite a while as I continued to paint; I was intent on finishing the job and the sun had come out, so I had to keep moving. She said she’d driven by off and on over the years, had admired the work I’d been doing to fix the place up, to see someone “pouring love” into it, as she put it. But she hadn’t seen anyone outside, so hadn’t stopped until now…though there was that time back in 2000 when she and her sister, Lois, had visited while my dad was still in residence. He’d walked them through the house and let them pick hollyhocks from the yard. This was news to me.

At one point she nodded towards the basement door, and asked if her grandma’s piano was still down there. The old, run-down piano I’d plunked around on as kid? She said my dad had told her it came with the house, that it’d belonged to her grandma. He even encouraged her to take one of the loose key tops away as a memento.

Dad! Because no, the piano wasn’t there anymore - I’d personally dismantled it to get it out of there - and oh by the way, it hadn’t belonged to her grandma. That was my dad telling tales, having hauled the piano home himself from a remodeling job back in the 1970s, when it’d been slated for the dump, and to the dump it should have gone.

But it was true that Dorothy’s grandparents had owned the house, and she asked if she might have another look inside come July, when her sister would be back in town for a school reunion.

Absolutely.

A month later, these two remarkably youthful women sat down with me in the shade of the front porch. Dorothy purposely chose the corner spot where a porch swing had once hung from the ceiling, recalling the memory of reclining there with her head in her grandma’s lap on just such a summer day, enjoying the lofty breezes.

Once inside, they recalled and questioned each other regarding other details: where Anna’s organ had been along with a favorite armchair. What knickknacks had been on the plate rails, and in which bedroom their grandma had kept her loom. Even in the dim basement Dorothy fondly associated the cool, damp smell with the memory of shelves full of produce that her grandma had canned and stored down there. Back out in the yard, they remembered the large gardens, including a small fruit orchard in a back corner.

Lois gave me some photos including their grandparent’s wedding portrait, and Dorothy shared screen shots from a 1954 home video. As someone who appreciates history, how amazing to see these people of the past in my yard and in my house! How spectacular as well was the view it once had before the trees started growing back in along the Hancock hillside; though trees are nice too.

Dorothy was able to fill me in on a rather complete history of her grandparents. I’d written in my previous post that James Barta had been a Baptist preacher, thanks to my dad’s (mis)information. He’d even told me of prayer meetings being held in the living room, though I never thought to ask just where this information had come from. According to Dorothy, her grandpa wasn’t the type. Born in Minnesota in 1887 to parents who’d emigrated from Czechoslovakia, he grew up on the family farm and like his father, became a blacksmith, owning a shop in North Dakota before moving to the Copper Country. What drew him here no one knows, but he found work as a blacksmith/welder at a repair shop called Exley’s, located on the first block of Reservation Street in Hancock. Dorothy said he’d often stop at the Hollywood Tavern on Ravine Street while making his way home, so not preacher material.

Anna was of Austrian-Hungarian descent, born in Kansas in 1893. When she was just two, her family travelled by covered wagon to North Dakota where they farmed, and where she’d eventually meet and marry James. After they moved to Hancock in 1926, she worked as a laundress at the Hotel Scott on Quincy Street. They initially lived on Hancock Street where they raised their first two sons, Wesley and Richard. Wes would attend MTU and become an engineer, while Richard - Dorothy and Lois’s dad - became an entrepreneur, starting the Copper Nugget, a popular weekly shopper newspaper, among many other business ventures.

It was in 1936 that James and Anna bought my house from the Salfenauer family for $1200, paying it off in increments of $15 a month through a land contract. This was a steep discount to the $2100 in loans the Salfenauers had taken out to purchase the lots and build the house some 30 years prior, but the Great Depression and the decline of the area’s copper mines had taken a heavy toll on local real estate prices.

It was in my house that the Bartas raised their two younger boys, Raymond and Jim, and here’s where the Baptists indeed enter the story, as they’d both grow up to be pastors. My dad had also told of James putting the two of them to work, digging and hauling a considerable amount of dirt by wheelbarrow from the backyard to the front to reduce the overall slope of the property - a nice character building activity. Plausible, but who knows?

James died at home of a heart attack in 1954, with Anna continuing to live at the house for a time before moving to live with family in Ohio, at which point she rented it out. In 1967 she put it up for sale, and it was her current tenant who found the buyer…at the Monte Carlo Bar…where my dad, also not preacher material, was in the habit of stopping after work. They’d gotten to talking and it just so happened my parents were considering moving to town from the sleepy community of Toivola, so they came to check out Anna’s house. It was a mansion in my mother’s eyes, all twelve hundred square feet, but my dad mainly saw all the work it needed - work he’d surely have to do. My mom persevered though, once $500 was knocked off the asking price. And the rest is more history.

There’d been another day a few summers ago when a car pulled up as I worked outside, and again the question, “Do you live here?” This time it was a man who said he’d lived in the house for a few years as a boy, son to that former renter. He told me how back then, the yard had been a tulip farm, a term you don’t hear very often. Spring bulbs can easily outlive the person who planted them, and tulips are in fact scattered all over the property, though mostly just leaves appear, no blooms. It inspired me to start digging them up to move to sunnier spots, and they’ve slowly begun rewarding me with blooms – ones that open later and are daintier and longer-lasting than any of the hybrids I’ve planted. I’m calling them the Barta Collection.

Tuberculosis, or TB, was originally called consumption, a name derived from the fact the disease seemed to consume its victims, their bodies gradually wasting away. Through the 1800s it was the leading cause of death worldwide, a deceptive illness in that those afflicted didn’t really look all that ill, nor feel all that bad. Yes they were losing weight and perhaps appeared more pale than usual. There may have been a slight fever and fatigue and a slowly worsening cough – the disease mostly attacked the lungs – but an infected person could go several months before even realizing they were ill, all the while potentially infecting others. It also showed an alarming preference for those in the prime of their life - people in their late teens to early thirties were its most common victims.

In 1882, German physician and microbiologist Robert Koch discovered the culprit – several species of Mycobacteria. This led to the pasteurizing of milk, subjecting it to heat to kill one of the species, Mycobacterium bovis, ending the transmission from cattle to humans. Another scientific discovery, one providing an actual cure for TB, was still well off into the future though. In the meantime, better sanitation and public awareness helped curb its spread. Please! No coughing, spitting, or sneezing…anything that could cause the transmission of the bacteria. Some communities even went so far as to make spitting illegal.

Various organizations took to raising funds to aid in the search for a cure, as well as to help with prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Have you heard of Christmas Seals? These adhesive stamps were sold at Christmastime around the world and featured the symbol chosen to represent the cause, the red double-barred cross. People affixed them to their holiday cards and letters, though they weren’t actually good for postage. In the United States, they initially sold for a penny a piece and in 1955 alone raised 26 million dollars.

TB infections were diagnosed through a chest x-ray, but then what? These people needed to be isolated from the rest of the population; placing them in a normal hospital setting wasn’t an option. Enter the sanatorium, a facility exclusively dedicated to housing and treating those afflicted with TB, though the “treatment” was largely limited to providing lots of rest, fresh air, natural light, and good nutrition. There was also pneumothorax, a procedure in which nitrogen gas was injected into the chest cavity, deliberately causing the collapse of a lung to allow it time to rest and heal, but not everyone was a candidate for the procedure, especially those whose infection had spread to the bronchial tubes.

The early 1900s saw a rapid rise in the number of sanatoriums around the world, and that included one in the Copper Country. In 1910, voters in Houghton County approved a bond measure to construct the facility I mentioned at the start of this post. It housed just 12 people initially and featured a large screened porch to which beds could be wheeled out to on nice days. Five years later the building was enlarged to house 36 patients, while clinics opened in both Houghton and Calumet to offer outpatient services. Ten years after that, the two clinics closed, their duties transferred to the sanatorium. That included x-ray screening for the area’s population, which is when one might have observed the facility’s inpatients strolling about the grounds, getting some fresh air and exercise while dressed as though ready for bed. (To view the following thumbnail images full-size from an email, click on one of the larger images above to open this post on the web.)

My great-uncle Arne Kananen was born in the Copper Country in 1910, a year after his parents arrived from Finland. The family settled in Toivola, Michigan, where they started a small dairy farm. In 1932, while Arne was still living at home helping out with the farm, he contracted TB, warranting a stay at the sanatorium. Some of that experience was recorded in a collection of 34 unlabeled photos he came away with.

This was a man who didn’t look ill, beyond perhaps being too thin, nor did he appear worried. As a rural farm boy he was likely having the most social interaction of his life, meeting new people, getting out and seeing some of the world so to speak, even if this placed him just a half hour from home. Several photos feature fellow patients sitting up in their beds, the men all striking the same simple pose of arms crossed, while the women tended more towards the dramatic. They had separate sleeping quarters but mingled elsewhere, including with the nurses. The photos give the impression Arne enjoyed some things about his stay at the sanatorium, and yet there was the underlying, disturbing reality of why he was there.

Everyone looks so upbeat in these photos, with no hint of the additional stressors they faced, such as loneliness and boredom. Many would spend well over a year at the sanatorium, during which time visits from family and friends were either limited or prohibited altogether. Unable to go anywhere themselves or do anything that might put stress on the body, they passed the time by playing cards, checkers, chess, and other games; and writing letters, listening to the radio, building puzzles, and reading books and magazines. This might sound like a vacation to some, but beyond two weeks of it, a certain degree of tedium had to set it. Yawn!

For many people with active TB, the infection would wax and wane; a period of flare-up and tissue destruction was followed by a period of healing, and then the cycle would repeat. Most of the patients at the Copper Country Sanatorium were considered advanced cases upon admission, many too far gone for a cure. Of those who did recover and were discharged, one in three would eventually return with renewed symptoms, and many would have lingering, sometimes lifelong health issues. Between 15-20% of the residents at the CC Sanatorium died. As for Arne, when it became evident he wouldn’t recover, he also returned home. I wonder, during what little time he had left, did he look back at these photos? He died on September 15, 1933, at just 23 years old.

It wasn’t until the late 1930s that the pneumothorax procedure was made available at the CC Sanatorium, performed in the library of all places. In 1940, a proper surgery room was provided when a new building was built next door, one that also housed a nurses’ residence, the doctor’s office, a business office, and the outpatient clinic. (That building is privately owned now, in use as a vacation rental!) Also in the 1940s, an addition onto the sanatorium added an additional 29 beds, bringing the capacity to 65, yet the need still outpaced availability. Those unable to secure a spot were instead provided regular home visits by specialized nurses and doctors, for which the state paid a subsidy.

It makes little sense, but only a few years after the sanatorium was expanded, a state inspection deemed the building a fire trap, unfit for further use. A new facility was proposed, a modern brick building to be located in Hancock, a short ways from the St. Joseph’s Hospital. That opened in 1950, but just prior to patients being transferred over, someone at the old sanatorium took another set of photos remarkably similar to those of Arne’s from 20 years earlier.

The community’s need for a new sanatorium proved short-lived. The discovery of the first antibiotics, specifically streptomycin in 1946, finally provided the cure for TB. In the 1960s, the building was repurposed as the Houghton County Medical Care Facility, where among others, residents from the county’s infirmary, the last remaining part of the “poor farm,” were transferred for long-term care. With upgrades and additions and a recent name change to Canal View, it still operates today.

Talk to anyone born prior to 1940, and they’ll surely recall the name of someone they knew who died of tuberculosis. I largely wrote this post in the past tense because we don’t hear much about it anymore, but TB is still around. No more chest x-rays these days – screening takes place through either a blood or skin test, and in the United States several hundred people still die from the disease each year. The numbers are far higher in certain underdeveloped countries, but effective treatments and prevention measures, including a vaccine, keep it relatively contained. As with any lingering infectious disease though, there’s always the concern that mutations by the bacteria could result in newer, more drug-resistant strains.

It’s also interesting to note that patient records from the time Arne was at the Copper Country Sanatorium exist, but short of obtaining a court order, I won’t be able to view them for another eight years - a person must be deceased at least 100 years before the public can access remaining medical records. Maybe I’ll know more of his story one day.

Ina’s projector still worked, allowing me to go through the four hundred-some scratched up images, their colors distorted, half so blurry or overexposed, I’m surprised she hung onto them. Nonetheless, if I were to describe them as a whole, it’d come down to three words: seasons, faces, and places.

In the Copper Country, each of the four seasons is distinct, and each plays a determining role in much about our lives, shaping our hobbies and daily chores, determining our moods, and hindering or encouraging our venturing out into the world. We’re energized by the lush intensity of summer. We pause in awe to take it all in during that final, colorful hurrah that precedes winter. Even when covered by a thick blanket of snow, we can’t help but find appreciation in its stark, quiet beauty. Then the sound of rain hitting the window panes for the first time in spring, as everything prepares for another go-round.

I know this photo was taken at midsummer, when the sun sets at its most northerly point, because that’s when it sinks straight out from the shore in Misery Bay, right at the center of the horizon. This is Ina, at the Lake, at the cabin. She loved that place first and best. Can you hear the waves gently lapping the shore? Feel the warmth of the fire? Smell the woodsmoke?

I was surprised at the number of slides devoted to the fall color season. I’d no idea Ina had been so enraptured. As much as she’d bemoan the thought of another approaching winter, it seemed as though fall lost its favor with her as well, guilty by association. But here were dozens and dozens of colorful roadside shots. I consider this one though, taken from inside the car, the real keeper. I love its unintentional artistic flare.

Once or twice a winter, when several weather conditions align just right, the Copper Country wakes up to the enchanting sight of a world covered in thick hoarfrost. Other nights, if the wind is still and a fine snow falls, the effect is the same. Then the rush to get photos before the warmth of the day or a gust of wind erases it all. Ina recorded this magical scene at the farm in Toivola.

Faces - of people I know of, but never knew. Of young kids, now adults making their way through middle age. This is my grandpa Pete, Ina’s husband, who died ten years before I was born, and that’s their first-born grandchild, my brother Mike. And how about that tree, covered in tinsel, Shiny Brite ornaments, and C7 bulbs. And those pink walls - a popular color choice in mid-century homes.

Faces of people I loved, now gone. This could be a Norman Rockwell painting. Instead, it’s a delightful and surprisingly well-focused slide of my brother Mike and my beloved mother, who’s been gone eighteen years now. Hard to believe, whenever I consider how long its been. It seems almost implausible, the way someone who meant so much to you can fade further and further into the past.

She looks so young because she was, already a mom to three boys while still in her early twenties. This had to have been at the Houghton County Airport, where surely they were either sending off or welcoming back Ina from a trip to visit her siblings in California. Back when the jet that serviced the Copper Country was nicknamed the “Blue Goose” because of the logo painted on its tail. No tall fences or tight security measures back then.

Places. So many blurry images, and yet it’s amazing how easily I recognize where photos were taken. There are certain dirt roads, for instance, that I’ve traveled enough times to know every stretch and every slight or sudden turn along its length. Post a photo, and I’ll know the exact spot. With Ina’s slides, it was more about vistas. Take away the labels; I don’t need them.

Anyone who’s visited the Copper Country of the past knows the scenic turnout heading up Quincy Hill. We called it the “Lookout,” and I grew up in a house just below. This is looking east towards Michigan Tech, back before the trees grew in along hillside, back before the campus had any tall buildings. My brothers would search the nearby poor rock piles for pieces of float copper to sell to the tourists who’d pull over at the Lookout, and in winter, my little friends and I would rush up a trail that wound through the woods to get there, pulling our sleds behind. We’d arrive breathless, our hearts thumping hard, and sit for a few minutes in our sleds, ropes tucked in and boots anchored in the snow, gazing across at the lights in Houghton. We were so warm out there in the cold, so happy, snowflakes catching in our lashes and melting on our hot cheeks as we anticipated another thrilling sweep down the hillside.

How many times, while camping at Fort Wilkins, did we stop at this spot to look down at the village of Copper Harbor? Though we didn’t pause for long, since our actual destination was further up and up along the road that plateaued and dipped and climbed some more along the spine of the Keweenaw, leading to another familiar Copper Country outlook - the peak of Brockway Mountain.

This is the curve at the bottom of Van Orden’s Hill, the predecessor to the four-lane highway and business corridor that is West Houghton today. The old swing bridge over the Portage Canal is off in the distance, and the smokestack at the Quincy Smelter Works, to the far right, is still billowing black smoke.

How could I not recognize the Portage and my hometown of Hancock, though the rail yards in Houghton were before my time. The Quincy hillside was still relatively treeless in this photo, and though the metal swing bridge was still in place, today’s lift bridge was in progress - you can see the cranes in the photo - dating this to around 1958.

The Lift Bridge and Quincy Shafthouse are the two most prominent landmarks in the Copper Country. We’d often walk across the bridge as kids, something I think adults should still do once in a while. I drive across it several times a week, and never fail to gaze up in appreciation - I know enough people living away who wish they could do as much. Our house, high on the hillside, had a view of the bridge, and on summer afternoons there’d come the sound of the Ranger’s horn as the ship returned from Isle Royale. The bridge operator would signal back, followed by the sound of the warning bells as the gates lowered, stopping traffic. A few minutes would pass before we’d hear the ship signal all clear, the bridge replying, cars starting back up as tourists snapped a final photo, the flow of traffic resuming. At night, when the community was otherwise idle, a different sound would carry up the hill, a whirring vibration of car tires passing over the metal grating of the bridge’s deck. It was a distinct, familiar, soothing sound. The bridge was brand new when Ina took this photo…of the car’s dash. The Quincy Shafthouse is that blip atop the hill.

In a way the accidental haze of so many of these images seems appropriate. Memories get fuzzy. With time and absence, we struggle to recall a person’s face, voice, or mannerisms, or to remember the exact layout of a place where we once spent so much time. The past is seen through a blurred lens; it’s the feelings we retain with certainty.

In 1957, Kodak ran an ad in magazines with the tagline, Your living room is your theater! Ina took note, purchasing both the Kodak Pony camera for $26.75, and a projector for $59.50, setting her back about $975 in today’s dollars. My grandparents weren’t wealthy, more like lower middle class, so this would have been an investment for them, one that proved a relatively short-lived fad.

The projector still worked, allowing me to go through the four hundred-some images, all of which were new to me. Several things stood out. First, about half the slides were so blurry or overexposed, I’m surprised she hung onto them. No one was able to get really crisp, sharp images with those cameras, but that’s no excuse for the quality Ina was putting out. When the latest batch arrived back from processing, would she just shrug and think, oh well, better luck next time? Was it that no one in her circle actually knew how to use the camera? Or did they all happen to have bad eyesight? Because geez! Or maybe she waited until 1965 to get most of the films developed, and then had a WTF moment.

Anyway, the images confirmed what I already knew about the 1950s. After two world wars and an economic depression, the United States had finally entered a time of prosperity, and people wanted to look the part. It was a stylish decade, with nearly everyone “dressed up” all the time, even when going casual. They could all think of themselves as being classy.

With improved highways and the newfound ability to afford long distance travel, the 1950s was also a time when the middle class first embraced the concept of the road trip. That included Ina, whose travel companions often included her sister Ann and brother-in-law Werner, as well as my grandpa Pete. Then when Pete died in 1962, Ina’s new boyfriend, Joe, stepped in, every bit as inept with the camera as his forbears.

They largely stayed within the confines of the U.P., visiting popular tourist attractions. That was their excuse for going, but more so it was about a change of scene, of checking out one of the local bars and heading somewhere new to eat. Restaurants put up roadside signage suggesting exactly that, simply the word EAT in all caps. This was also the golden age of motels, with thousands of them springing up throughout the United States to accommodate a growing clientele. No need to call ahead and make reservations though - just look for a Vacancy sign.

With that said, sit back and enjoy this sampling of a few of the places and events that had them hitting the road, though being as I’m not actually holding you hostage in my darkened living room as I operate the projector, feel free to step out of this blog post at any time; I promise I won’t notice.

When the Mackinac Bridge opened in 1957, it made year-round travel to downstate locations far more efficient. How exciting it must have been for Pete and Ina as they crossed it for the first time on their way to visit Ina’s sister, Emma, who lived in Detroit. Ina took a whole series of photos while traversing its five-mile span, as well as a final shot looking back from land. (I’m not bothering to edit the slides much beyond some cropping; I’d rather you see them in all their imperfect glory.)

There was a tour of the Soo locks in Sault Ste. Marie, though gardening-obsessed Ina seemed more interested in the flowers at an adjacent park than the big ships.

They were to Ironwood in 1959 for a wedding, and to Marquette to see a Navy ship, the tank lander De Soto, docked in the harbor.

In 1963, they took in the Logger’s Parade in Eagle River, Wisconsin, where Miss Vilas County reigned over an eclectic assortment of entries.

Water cascading down rock faces or ledges? Always a hit. Ina and crew visited three different waterfalls on separate occasions: Tahquamenon, Munising, and Bond Falls, but the photos were all rather poor quality. Instead, how about Kitch-iti-kipi, a natural spring near Manistique, one filled with crystalline, teal colored water. And how about Castle Rock near St. Ignace, an ancient limestone sea stack, one oddly paired with statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox at its base.

Ina and Joe rode the LS&I’s Engine #23 to the secluded lakeshore community of Big Bay in 1964. I include these to prove a point. Whoever took the pic of them knew how to work the camera, whereas Joe, who surely took the solo pic of Ina, did not. Painful.

There was even a long-distance trip to California, but lord, what a photographic tragedy in that nearly every image was overexposed and blurry. They weren’t used to all that sun! And you know how I mentioned motels? They typically had lots of vibrant signage to entice weary travelers off the highways. Let me provide you with a rather vague idea, and that just might be some sort of cactus in the second photo.

And with that I’ve reached the maximum post length allowed by Substack. Problem is, I still have lots more to show you, so you’ll have to stop over again soon. I know you can hardly wait. Perhaps you’ve got a collection of family slides sitting in a drawer or on a shelf somewhere that you’ve been meaning to get to yourself, so in the interim, get cracking! Then invite me over, because turnabout is fair play.

Located just outside the Hancock city limits, it stands in an area that very early on was a shantytown, with dwellings randomly perched along the steep ravines in the oddest and most inconvenient places, accessed by what amounted to winding goat paths. The land itself belonged to the Quincy Mining Company, which saw little use for it until 1900, when the decision was made to plat the hillside into residential lots. The intention was to create a respectable middle class neighborhood, one known as the Quincy Hillside Additions.

An advertisement was placed in the local paper listing the lots for sale, and notices were tucked in the pay envelopes of the mine’s employees. That’s when Sebastian Salfenauer, an immigrant from Rosenheim, Germany, took notice. At the age of 43, he’d been working at Quincy for eight years, employed under the official title of miner, a skilled position. As such he did contract work, bidding on individual jobs with a team of men who relied on his knowledge to determine where the richest concentrations of copper lay. From there they drilled holes into the surrounding rock, setting explosives to blast it all free. Though his pay fluctuated depending on the current contract, he averaged about $60 a month according to his employee records found in the Michigan Tech Archives.

In doing a Google search, imagine my surprise at finding my house had been mentioned in a scholarly work. In her book Mine Towns, former Michigan Tech history professor Alison Hoagland wrote that in 1905, Sebastian and his wife, Rosalia, purchased one of the lots for $350. The payment, plus interest, was garnished from his wages over fifteen installments. According to the abstract at the Houghton County Courthouse, they also secured $1200 in loans to construct the house: $900 from the Northern Michigan Building and Loan, and $300 from Charles Hanchette, the Quincy Mining Company’s lawyer and real estate developer. That second part seems a little sordid. Hanchette was also a brother-in-law to the mine’s Superintendent, cough, cough.

The mining company included a number of stipulations in the sales contract, all geared towards insuring this new neighborhood remained respectable, but just as important, it reserved the mineral rights and the right to mine said minerals to within fifteen feet of the surface rock. It also built a series of six spec houses from which new home owners could choose. Each was far more elaborate than the cookie cutter fare the mine was in the habit of building to lease to its employees, yet none would have been considered grand. Instead, they might have been described as tastefully modest, with floor plans that included parlors, dining rooms and pantries, as well as the luxury of an indoor bathroom. All had extensive wood trim throughout: French doors, crown molding, plate rails and the like, at a time when the lumber industry was ravaging the forests of the Midwest.

From among the six spec houses, the Salfenauer family chose a two-story bungalow, one with gabled ends, a central dormer, and a steeply pitched roof to shed snow. An open front porch would run the full length, with a tall set of stairs necessary to reach the front door, given that the house would be built into the hillside. At least two other parties would choose this same house plan, but would build on different streets, far enough apart to have gone unnoticed, or at least I never noticed until I began my research.

Up to this point the Salfenauers, including their four children - Joseph, Rose, Marie and Hattie - had boarded in town, and while the house was being built they resided on Franklin Street in Hancock. A walk up Hillside Road would have allowed them to check on the construction progress, where despite the hilly terrain, they’d soon live in a convenient location. Downtown Hancock was just a half mile away, and the mine just a mile further up the hill, a short walk to work for Sebastian. In fact one of the main access roads to the future highway passed right by, though so steep, it was eventually abandoned.

It seems an easy enough decision, a miner choosing to build a home, and yet it was unusual. Though they were the highest paid among the underground laborers, most still couldn’t afford a mortgage. Hoagland found that the Salfenauers dealt with a lack of funds in a common enough way: they took in boarders at their new residence. In the 1910 census, not one, but two Finnish families lived with them at the same time. There was Andrew Nuranen, a railroad employee, with his wife and their two young children; and John Tepola, a miner, with his wife and their three children. That same census listed all four of the Salfenauer’s children still at home, making for fifteen people living in a house that was just over 1,200 square feet. Not exactly the American dream of home ownership.

Of the three upstairs bedrooms, two were quite small; it would have been a tight squeeze to fit in a second bed or crib, let alone a dresser, trunk, or small table. I assume at least some of the Salfenauers occupied the master bedroom, though who knows how many of them packed inside. A sizeable sitting area off the upstairs hallway provided a place to stretch out anyway, with a sweeping view of the valley and Portage Canal below - tall windows throughout the house let in plenty of natural light. With each room separated from the next by doors, it’s entirely possible the downstairs dining room may have been used as a temporary fourth bedroom, and a double parlor meant the women could enjoy some privacy while lounging separately from the men. During the warmer months, there was also the large front porch to relax on while watching the traffic pass.

Surely the Salfenauer daughters helped Rosalia in meeting the needs of this expanded household. In addition to cleaning, cooking, baking, and laundry, there were several coal burning stoves to keep fed and stoked. I parallel their lives to that of my Finnish American ancestors, who eventually chose to leave the mine towns behind in favor of homesteading. Either way, a good deal of sacrifice and hard work was to be had on the path to home ownership, resulting in something modern on a residential lot in town, or something rustic on 160 acres. City versus country folk.

And now comes a brief parade of significant dates. In 1912, Joseph Salfenauer married a woman named Anna LeVeque, and they had a daughter, Cecilia, after which her parents disappear from the records. She’d be raised by her grandparents and aunts, leaving me to wonder if there’d been some sort of tragedy I have yet to discover.

The following year, on July 23, 1913, Sebastian quit his job. It was an important date in Copper Country history, and a hectic one in the mining offices as their labor force went on strike, demanding better working conditions and hours, and an end to paternalism and child labor. The walkout lasted nine months and was largely unsuccessful, but Sebastian returned to work after just four – men with house payments were notoriously likely to cave.

In 1915, Rosalia died at home from complications of diabetes. She was 60 years old and had lived in her new home for just ten. A year later, Sebastian purchased the adjoining lot for $600, creating a much larger yard, albeit one that slanted considerably along the hillside. That same year he conveyed the property as a life estate to his three daughters.

In December of 1927, Sebastian left his job for good, the words “no work” written on his records, meaning there was no work to be had. Production in the mines had begun slowing down. The man was 67 though, and had spent about two-thirds of his life working underground in both Germany and the Copper Country. I’d say it was time he got himself out of there, and I also wonder what he’d have thought had he been told it was all destined to become part of a national historic park. He died at home of heart failure in May of 1935, having enjoyed seven years of retirement.

His estate passed to his three daughters and granddaughter Cecilia, and soon thereafter, they signed a land contract conveying the property to a Baptist preacher named James Barta, who along with his wife Anna, held weekly prayer meetings at the house. Did the very Catholic Salfenauers cringe? I haven’t learned much else about the Bartas, other than they paid $1200 for the property, quite a depreciation from the $2100 the Salfenauers had paid. But back in 1905, Hancock had been in the midst of a boom, whereas by 1936 the railroad had begun putting extra cars on southbound trains to handle the population exodus. Property values dropped accordingly.

Rose and Hattie, who never married, moved with Cecilia to DeKalb, Illinois, where they joined their married sister Marie. In 1946, when she was 33, Cecilia married an attorney and moved to Pennsylvania. As with her three aunts, she’d have no children though, and of these four women, she’d live the longest, all the way to 102, dying just a few years shy of my starting this research. Son of a bitch, I’d just missed her. How I would have loved to meet her, and the stories she could have told about the house, the neighborhood, and the city!

According to her obituary, she attended the two Catholic schools in Hancock, St. Joseph’s Elementary and St. Patrick’s High School, and in 1929, when she was 17, was honored as Michigan’s champion typist. I wonder if her grandpa had bought her a machine so she could practice at home. Her sole surviving relatives were three nieces she’d acquired through marriage, and after reaching out to them through Facebook - that essential tool of the modern historian - a package arrived on my porch from Illinois…

First off, I was beyond delighted at a photo of Sebastian standing on my porch, an imposing man dressed in a dark overcoat and hat. On the back, written in cursive: The boss and his house. Boss is waiting for you all to welcome. Notice gate open for you all.

There was Cecilia’s graduation photo from St. Patrick’s High School, taken at Kukkonen’s Studios in Hancock.

I learned that after graduation, she’d spent five years working as a private secretary to Professor A.T. Sweet, Head of the Metallurgy and Ore Dressing Department at the Michigan College of Mines, later Michigan Tech. In a letter of recommendation, he praised her as being most capable and efficient, and possessing great integrity and ability. Her attitude towards her work, her conscientious application, her public relations and her knowledge of political and business fundamentals should recommend her to any executive who needs a confidential secretary upon whom he can wholly depend. Hmm…I suppose all executives were men?

An article clipped from the Daily Mining Gazette, dated July of 1973, reported the “esteemed” Marie, age 91, had come from Pennsylvania with Cecilia to see her beloved Hancock. In fact, it stated she often visited the old neighborhood, and was widely acquainted with the people in the vicinity. Surely they would have at least driven by the house, but did they stop? My dad never mentioned it, though my family was now in residence, having bought the house from the Bartas. No way for me to remember - I was just six months old.

And then there was the box, hand decorated using pyrography and inscribed as a gift from Rose to one of the other family members on Christmas Day of 1908. Inside were several hat pins, two of them topped with rough cut, pink-tinged crystals. These were calcite imbedded with copper, a common “gem” of the Keweenaw. I was told by an employee at the Seaman Mineral Museum in Houghton that the men working in the mines often pocketed such mineral specimens while on the job, though this was frowned upon by management. Some added them to their personal collections or sold them to collectors. Others simply gave them away as novelties, but in at least one case, they were made into hat pins - treasures that’d made their way back home.

A few more notes. In researching the past, I sometimes feel a strong nudge that leads to connecting yet another dot. In this instance, having received these images of Cecilia, I felt as though I’d seen her face before. Many years ago, my dad received a collection of photos found in a neighbor’s house, many of them featuring our own house in the background. I got them out and sifted through in search of one that featured a young woman standing in what was clearly our backyard, someone looking stylish indeed, and now I knew who. On the back was written, Cele 15 years. Aha! Cele was 15-year-old Cecilia.

Through a call to the Portage Township clerk, I learned the Salfenauers were buried at the Forest Hills Cemetery in Houghton. It was an exciting day the first time I visited them there, and I was surprised, though then again why, to find all three of the daughters - Rose, Marie, and Hattie - had chosen to be buried in the Copper Country alongside their parents. An old, unsightly metal planter containing moss and weeds stood in front of the headstone, and I wondered, who’d brought it there? How long ago? This was a family that’d come to the end of the line so to speak, though they’d left a few things behind, including a house.

Though they’re needy, I’ll take an old home any day over something modern. I love the character and coziness, the look and toasty warmth of the cast iron radiators, the generous old woodwork dinged up by the hustle and bustle of the many families that have passed through. I love that there’s a history. When I sit in my house, it’s easy enough for me to recall moments from childhood, but sometimes I try to imagine further back, to voices raised in fervent prayer, to the clack of typewriter keys, to all those voices speaking German and Finnish, and I think, it’s no wonder the stairs creak the way they do.

It was my grandma Ina who provided us our motivation, having sent word that our neighbors in Misery Bay - I’ll call them the Makis - had arrived from Milwaukee for their annual family vacation. Though Jodi and I had only sparingly interacted with them, we took great interest in the “Maki boys,” the three young brothers. They were cute and they terrified us, hence we planned to covertly admire them while sharing the beach, hoping to convey an air of sophisticated nonchalance. This then was our reason for going, though also throw in the excitement of a new adventure and the lure of swimming on what promised to be a hot day. And since no one was willing or available to give us a ride there, we decided to bring ourselves.

With swimsuit, towel, water bottle, and two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches apiece in our backpacks, we hit the road. This wasn’t very well thought out. Roughly half of the twenty-six miles to the cabin was highway, pedaled without wearing helmets. Kids who wore helmets were an oddity; we didn’t own them, and while it took us longer than anticipated, we made it to Misery Bay without incident. After stopping at the spring by the old schoolhouse to gulp down all the cold water we could stand, we completed the final leg.

Unlocking the cabin door, we set down what little there was to settle before heading back out to eat our sandwiches at the picnic table - we were ravenous. Then a change of clothes before heading down to the beach to scope things out and take a dip in Lake Superior’s icy waters, something our tired muscles appreciated. No sign of the Maki boys though.

I don’t know that we intended to stay the night, but it was soon clear that’d be the case, tired as we were. Still hungry too. It was early in the summer and Ina hadn’t yet restocked the shelves. Searching the kitchen cabinets revealed nothing but staples: flour, cornstarch, sugar, and coffee, all in repurposed glass jars my grandma had labeled with masking tape. This was starvation food and we weren’t at that point yet. There was also a jar of Brach’s pick-a-mix candies that’d been around for so long, they’d melted through their individual wrappers, forming one large clump. We brought it out to the picnic table and slowly pried it apart, eating the candies with considerable critique while watching through the brush for signs of movement two doors down. Nothing – what a bust!

Another skip to the beach was followed by a couple games of cards, Rummy 500, played by lamplight at the kitchen counter, sapping what little energy we had left. We retired earlier than usual for summer vacation, sinking with delight between the crisp sheets Ina always kept on the beds. The occasional mosquito stood no chance of stirring us from our slumber that night.

What followed was another lovely day, though we greeted it with little enthusiasm given our considerable soreness and hunger, this while facing the prospect of another twenty-six miles of pedaling. Jodi suggested we take a different route, riding to my Wiitala grandparent’s house instead, a short jaunt of seven miles, where I could call my dad to come get us when he was done with work. Though this might sound like the obvious solution, the problem was in fact many-fold. I wasn’t at all comfortable with dropping in unexpectedly on these grandparents of mine, who no longer had a car themselves. Were it Ina, absolutely, but the “Folks” were the kind of people who didn’t like surprises. They were also prone to shaming and scolding, and we’d have to spend a considerable amount of time waiting under their judgmental eye. My dad wasn’t one to be inconvenienced either; he’d blow a small fuse at the very least what with having to drive down on a weeknight with his work truck, or he might refuse to come altogether. As far as I was concerned, it wasn’t a feasible option, plus we didn’t need anyone’s help. I certainly didn’t!

You want to talk about some long-ass miles though. Arriving back at the highway, Jodi wanted to make a phone call from the Toivola post office to see if her mom’s boyfriend could come get her and the bike with his station wagon. I pleaded with her to stay the course, afraid there wouldn’t be room for me in that station wagon, instead left to travel the remainder alone. Suffice it to say, we soldiered on, and it was with a great deal of giddiness that we cruised down the hill leading into Houghton, having finally arrived back in town. Some delirium too, causing me to slam into Jodi’s back tire while crossing an intersection. She managed to stay upright, but I wiped out hard on the pavement. Statistics show most accidents happen close to home.

Despite some significant pain, I did my best to spring back up, as always, what with a great terror of attracting attention or worse yet, having someone rush to my aid. So embarrassing, and I didn’t need help! One of my knees wasn’t much interested in bending anymore and a pedal had chewed up my shin, but the thin gloves I wore saved my hands from damage - just a little embedded gravel and two jammed wrists.

After crossing the lift bridge into Hancock, we entered the homestretch, so imagine my disbelief when Jodi once again made a threat to place a phone call from downtown to her mom’s boyfriend. Where the hell was this girl’s sisu? Yes, it was all uphill, but still! I considered it imperative that we complete this ridiculous journey together, so yet again I convinced her to stay the course. Walking up and up the steep roads, we pushed our bikes in a zigzag fashion, every so often crossing paths, at which point I felt it my duty to provide some comic relief, saying something in Finnish that we both understood because it was the important stuff. Wearily, I sighed, Voi kauhea! That got some giggles. Then, Saatana perkele! Swearing was guaranteed amusement. I followed this with an emphatic, Paska housut!

I forget whether she saddled up or just walked the remaining few blocks to her own house once we reached mine at the top of the final hill. She didn’t threaten to make another phone call anyway. I also know our bikes never left the confines of Hancock again.

Two years later, when I was fifteen, I got it in my head that it’d be neat to spend some alone time at the cabin - just a night - what I envisioned as a brief bohemian adventure. And so on a muggy summer evening my mom dropped me off down there. She had to work that night, but Ina would be coming down to join me the following day. Still…no car, no phone, no plumbing or electricity, and by the looks of it, no one else in residence at any of the other cabins along our secluded stretch of the bay.

It was with a slight feeling of misgiving that I watched as she drove away, but then to get down to enjoying this unique experience. I’d save the beach for tomorrow, instead bringing out the copy of Elle Magazine I’d brought along. Taking a seat on the patio, I anticipated a lazy paging through, greeted by the scent of the many perfume ads inside whilst dreaming of becoming a fashion designer in New York. It was a quiet evening with little birdsong, and the lake was smooth. This was going to be lovely, I thought to myself. The sound of a car engine interrupted my tranquility.

Standing at the edge of the patio for a better look, I watched as a white van slowly came into view, one driven by a man who didn’t so much smile at me through his open window as smirk. A pleased look really, pairing well with his thoughts that I imagined went something like this: Cha-ching! Glad I decided to cruise this isolated, dead end road tonight! I’ll for sure swing back after dark.

Even if there’d been a phone, how long would it have taken an officer from the Ontonagon County Sheriff’s Department to travel the forty-some miles from the station? A deputy had left a card once, wedged in the cabin door, a friendly gesture letting us know he’d been by on patrol and therefore we were in good hands. That’d been five years prior and it’d amused Ina to the extent she kept it on display, but it wasn’t funny now. Forty plus miles, though if a body was already cold, there’d be no need for speed.

Setting the magazine aside, I tried instead to do some sketching, my muse being a pot of Ina’s pansies set upon a rotting birch stump, but I just couldn’t relax what with the image of that white van. From far off on the lake there came a low rumble of thunder, like cannon fire on some distant battlefield. Perfect. There wouldn’t be much of a sunset, and the mosquitos soon chased me inside, where after an evening snack, I stood at the sink, ready to wash my face and brush my teeth. It didn’t strike me as concerning that someone had forgotten to place the cover back on the bucket that held washing-up water, until I discovered the drowned, bloated mouse floating inside.

Darkness was gathering as I crossed the road to toss the bucket and contents into the woods. Then a quick skip to the outhouse, followed by a check of the beach from atop the dune. My gaze swept the shoreline in both directions, looking for signs of life, but there wasn’t a bonfire to be had.

Back inside, I set about lighting one of the kerosene lamps, only to have the flame inexplicably draw into the reservoir with a whooshing sound. That wasn’t supposed to happen! Not wanting to burn the cabin down, I raced out the door, willing the firebomb in my hands to hold off. Were it to explode, I might have said goodbye to that career in NYC, but so long as the cabin was safe. I can’t say I gently placed it down so much as I tossed it onto the patio, lucky the kerosene reservoir didn’t crack in the process. Instead, the lamp tipped over, breaking the glass chimney, the flame sputtering out. I left it there in case it was just pretending to be dead, and though my hands shook as I lit another match, I had far better luck with the second lamp.

With the doors locked for the night, I sat in silence at the kitchen counter, trying to enjoy some solitaire, shuffling the cards as quietly as possible, listening to the rumbling of thunder that continued over the lake. I didn’t dare put the radio on; I wanted to hear if the van man returned. This wasn’t the relaxing, sophisticated evening I’d envisioned, and with a sense of resignation I finally made my way to bed, where I tried to read the copy of Jane Eyre I’d brought along. I just couldn’t focus.

On blowing out the lamp, I found myself enveloped in what was perhaps the darkest night in Misery Bay history. This was when my imagination really went to town, well beyond the van man. First I considered what it’d be like if the door to the other bedroom were to creak open, the spirit of my deceased uncle Jake, who I’d never known but who’d died in that room, emerging, unable to leave the mortal plane without taking me along. I watched way too many horror movies.

And was the thunder growing louder? Yes, soon accompanied by lightning that gave me brief glimpses of my surroundings. What if instead, countless deceased Finnish Americans were climbing out of their graves at the Toivola cemetery, reanimated by the approaching storm’s energy and determined to feast upon me? As rain began pummeling the roof, I switched topics once again, picturing a werewolf, one seven feet tall with saliva dripping from its toothy jaws, racing through the woods, stopping every so often to sniff at the damp air, having caught my scent. Despite the muggy night I kept the bed covers pulled up to my chin, sweating profusely but clinging to the childhood belief that I’d remain hidden if I stayed beneath them.

It may well have been the longest thunderstorm in Misery Bay history, or was it a series of storms? The lightning carried on for hours, thunder slamming in perfect unison at times, causing me to question whether the cabin was on fire. It wasn’t until the first hint of daylight that the weather passed, the birds breaking into chorus as if unfazed by the night’s drama. Blessed relief! I fell asleep until noon, when the slamming of car doors wakened me. It was Ina and I could have kissed her! She was happy to see me too, though surprised I’d slept so late, and understanding about the broken lamp chimney, but pissed about my throwing a perfectly good bucket in the woods. It just needed to be washed! Ina, who grew up on a farm where the occasional critter drowned in the well and you just fished it out and forgot about it. Hyi!

Some might be aghast at the chance taking of my youth, but it left me open to new experiences and adventure, and it was a different time – aren’t all times? Today, if two kids were seen riding their bikes down the side of the highway, and without helmets, people might get on their cell phones and call the cops. I’ve also come to realize I needn’t have worried so much about the van man or werewolves – it’s wolves that show up in sheep’s clothing that you need to be on the lookout for. There was clearly some family dysfunction going on too; it left me with a tendency towards extreme independence, born of experience and necessity from an early age. But show me the rare individual who escapes childhood unscathed. There are so many stories.

Even in the height of winter, plants were always on my mom’s mind, and the Christmas season necessitated a visit to Nissila’s Greenhouse in the tiny town of Ripley, just east of Hancock. As the name suggested, this was a business run by a Finnish American, one long patronized by a very faithful Finnish American clientele. It was owned by Pete Nissila, a tall, balding, soft spoken man with glasses who had a weekly radio show on WMPL, talking all things houseplants and gardening, and taking questions from his loyal call-in audience. That included my mom and Ina, who treated Pete like the local horticulture celebrity he was. They’d walk into his shop having mentally rehearsed their questions for him, sometimes bringing notes along and making sure to mention something they’d heard from his latest program. Were they flirting with him?

During the summer gardening season, Nissila’s was a hopping place, but it was special in winter too, when all was desolate and frozen outdoors, the grass buried under several feet of snow, the trees a collection of barren branches clattering in the wind. Walking into the shop was like passing through a magic threshold, the tinkling bells on the door announcing our arrival and transporting us from a cold, blustery day, into a hot and humid place, the windows iced up with condensation, the air smelling pungent, perfumed and earthy.

Tall coolers in the entry held cut flowers waiting to be combined into bouquets, what I understood to be a pricey luxury item. I’d gaze at those fancy blooms with awe and a twinge of envy, before joining my mom in a small adjoining room that was a true greenhouse, entirely surrounded by clear plexiglass, with moss growing out of the cracks in the concrete floor and a turgid garden hose spraying tiny jets of water that collected into puddles. Here were found the African violets that held a special place in my mother’s plant-loving heart. At home, she kept them near the kitchen radiator all winter where they appreciated the warmth, and at the shop, she examined those for sale, quietly commenting to no one in particular as she appraised whether any were different from those she already had, to justify a purchase. Other fragile specimens in this humid space included orchids and carnivorous plants - it was the sundew and Venus flytraps that I studied closely – had any managed to catch their dinner?

Through a passageway we entered the back of the shop, a large, brightly lit room dominated by something quite unexpected for the Copper Country: a banana plant, as tall as a tree. Row after row of potted plants hung in baskets and sat atop long counters, and here we found our purpose - we’d come to pick out a poinsettia for Ina. But I left that decision to my mom, lured instead to the display of cactuses in all shapes and sizes, some with large, woody, menacing spines, others simply fuzzy. They begged to be touched, and so I did, until Pete interrupted his animated chat with my mother to suggest I refrain. Mortifying! Soon my fingertips and palms began to tingle and itch, embedded with tiny thorns, so the man had a point. (And I have a pun.)

The bows! Behind the counter, an entire wall was covered in them, pre-made bows in a wide array of shiny colors and prints ready to add pizzazz to any potted plant. But how to pick just one? I stood no chance; I yearned for them all. My mother found this far easier, and I nodded in agreement, then the colorful foil that came off a roll to wrap around the poinsettia’s pot. The final touch was the greeting card, but again so many to choose from, displayed in a revolving rack – such tiny cards with equally tiny envelopes. They were almost too cute! Anything miniature held serious sway with me.

Our mission complete, the bells tinkled atop the shop door again, transporting us back to winter, snow whipping across the parking lot as we rushed to the car, the poinsettia tucked inside a plastic bag. We’d likely be back for Easter, and in May for sure, when all was sunshine and greening up and birdsong, to pick out something cheerful for Ina’s birthday – perhaps a bright red fuchsia, or a gloxinia with its bell-shaped, purple blooms fringed in white. Or maybe an angel wing begonia, adored by both my grandma and mom.

Nissila’s closed about fifteen years ago. Last I looked, it appeared to have become a private residence. Pete is gone now too - in his obituary, he was described as “a walking encyclopedia of gardening,” someone who always had time to answer people’s questions about plants, providing the answer with a smile. In my mind I will always return to his shop anytime I catch the scent of florist’s bouquet, and I still can’t pass a cactus without giving it a small poke, first glancing to make sure no one’s around to chastise me. It’s no longer curiosity that compels me, but a way to connect to memory. If you were to write about a store from your youth, which would you choose, and why?

The Keweenaw receives on average over two hundred inches of snow a year. Blizzards are really the only type of severe weather we regularly encounter, the only type of weather that leaves something behind to photograph. My grandparents had the tendency to snap pics of the impressive snowbanks, photos that did more for them than they do for me now. I wasn’t there; I didn’t experience that storm or that winter.

My grandpa Wilho “Pete” Kananen drove a plow for the Houghton County Road Commission. His territory included the community of Toivola. He had a reputation for keeping the roads well-tended, making sure people were able to get to work in the morning to the point I was told he’d sleep at the county garage if bad weather was expected, so that he wouldn’t be delayed in getting to work. He died in 1959 after slipping on some ice and falling onto a piece of heavy equipment. Being stubborn, he just went home and spent several weeks lying on the couch with broken ribs, finally admitted to the hospital once he developed pneumonia. Some of those old Finns had so much sisu, it bordered on stupidity, only willing to see a doctor when they were about to die, and that’s what Pete did. He had a heart attack soon after. It didn’t help that he’d been a chain smoker his entire adult life.

As long as I knew my grandma Ina, she hated winter, resulting in many decades of being unhappy with the weather for about half the year. Most of her siblings moved away to California when they were still young, but she and Pete chose to raise their family in the Copper Country. Once she retired from her job as a lunch lady at the Hancock Public Schools, becoming a snowbird wasn’t in her budget, so she just toughed it out. At least it made her two favorite things, being at the lakeshore cabin and gardening, extra sweet once the mild weather returned. It was always a time of great joy for her when she’d start her Lobelia seeds in the kitchen oven, the door cracked open, the heat from the pilot light encouraging their germination.

I never once heard either of my paternal grandparents, Lillian and Wilho Wiitala, complain about winter. They lived in a tiny house down a dead-end road in Misery Bay, a quiet place in summer, an exceedingly silent place in winter. There might be the happy chatter of chickadees at the bird feeder, and if it was a mild, the sound of crows cawing in the trees at the edge of the field, but mostly it was just the whisper of wind in the tall pine trees my grandpa had planted as a windbreak on the north side of the house. It seemed like the height of isolation when we’d visit them as kids; those few hours often dragged, so what was an entire day like for them? They cooked and ate, did some reading, watched one of the two TV channels they received with the antenna. They shoveled and scooped snow, checked the mailbox, watched the bird feeders, hauled wood, fired up the sauna, and kept the two woodstoves cranked, the only sources of heat the house ever had. The occasional car would pass by, usually someone they knew, always on the same schedule. For many years they took the Community Action senior citizen bus to town once or twice a month - that was always a big event. They lived such simple lives, but it’s what they knew and what they wanted.

Whenever we’d visit, the main event was the fantastic home cooked meal my grandma served at their kitchen table that was so small, it was necessary to eat in shifts of three. I’d sit with the adults in the living room after and shower the cat with affection, but it was tough to stay awake inside that warm house, especially with a full belly and listening to the others speak Finnish, a language I didn’t understand. So I often put my boots and coat back on and went outside to play with Radar, my grandparent’s Malamute mix dog, who lived and slept outdoors on all but the most frigid days. More often than not, I’d also build a snowman.

In winter we do Yooper things: we skate, ski, snowshoe, snowbike, go ice fishing, play hockey, and snowmobile. We shovel, scoop, blow, plow and pank snow. Once there’s enough on the ground, it’s a good time to burn brush, and once there’s a lot on the roofs, people start to worry about getting them shoveled off. I enjoy both of those tasks immensely, such satisfying work.

I take after Ina with a love of gardening, but I also indulge in the break from the growing season, from the intensity of it all, not having to concern myself with watering the flowers or mowing the grass for a while, though a “while” has a tendency to get old during the coldest month of February, to really drag out as we head through March. No winter lasts forever though, and no spring skips its turn.

Like so many of my ancestors, I enjoy cross country skiing, and so unlike Ina, I welcome the snow. Of course I take lots of photos - it certainly is pretty out there, and the heavier, impressive accumulations beg to be documented. Will I look back at them and reminisce someday? Probably.

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My great-grandma Emma Rantanen emigrated from Finland when she was a young woman. She married Kalle “Charles” Heikkinen, who was born in the Copper Country just four months after his parents arrived from Finland. Together they had nine children, four boys and five girls, and raised them in Toivola on a ninety-acre dairy farm that’d originally been Charles’ parent’s homestead. My grandma Ina, born in 1915, was their sixth child.

At various times in her life Ina kept a simple diary, jotting down at least a few lines every day, always with a mention of the weather, of where the family had gone visiting, and of who’d visited them - it was a lively home. She had her chores to do, including milking the cows, washing clothes, ironing and baking. Often an entire day was devoted to a given household task. These things were only mentioned in passing, however; it was the active social life she and her siblings maintained, this while living out in the country, that filled the pages. The farm kids clearly sought excuses to get together, whether to the hall to dance, to the lakeshore to camp, or by attending parties at various homes. She often described these events in terms of fun. Lots of fun! … Loads of fun! … Talk about fun!

This post covers the end of a one-year diary she kept some ninety-five years ago, from May 1929 to April 1930, when she was fourteen. (You can read about the start of the diary here.) Her grandma Karoliina was living with the family, and five of her siblings were still at home: Anna, Helen, Emma, Charles and Eino. Her older sister Ida and brothers Toivo and Bill had moved out, but visited often. Some details then, month by month…

January 1930 On New Year’s Day: Nice day. Helen, Anna, and Charles were Luukkonen’s with Kelley’s horse. I was station with Aunt Mary. Lillian went home and Emma went with her. Mrs. Johnson and Ethel were over…

The diary is an endless parade of names, usually just first names, sometimes a last initial, especially if there were, for instance, several men named Toivo living in Toivola and she needed to specify which one. If she simply wrote “Toivo,” that was her brother.

Exchanging Valentines was all the rage down in the country. In anticipation, Ina “sent down” for hers, placing an order through the mail. She also “put an order” to Zanol, a mail order company that sold a wide variety of household products, from baking ingredients to undergarments.

With all that buying, it seems she decided to try her hand at selling too, through the United Profit Sharing Corporation: Mary and I were over to Trasti’s way to sell from my book. I don’t know how it worked exactly, but she had a catalog from which people could choose items to order, “paying” for them with coupons they’d collected from purchasing various brand name products, a sort of loyalty program. Ina must have received some sort of compensation. It was her favorite aunt, Mary, who accompanied her on her route this particular day.

The Russel boys moved their stuff in the camp … Mr. Luukkonen came over to work for us. Have nine men working now … The Haakana men moved the camp behind the fence … There must have been significant logging taking place on the farm that winter, requiring hired labor. Back in December, Ina had helped with setting up the camp, which may have included a mobile shanty set on skis, since she referred to it as a reki, a sleigh, and of the Haakana men moving the camp.

On January 21st they had a party at the house for her brother Toivo, who turned twenty-three. She listed all seventeen guests.

February 1930 In early February Ina’s eldest sister Ida, who was living in Detroit, had a baby, and someone named Kelley brought her sister Anna, who was nineteen, to the Station so she could take the train downstate to help care for mother and baby. This “Kelley” factors prominently in the diary. He spent a fair amount of time at the Heikkinen farm, had a team of horses he transported people around with, and borrowed them to others as needed, but I have no idea who he was. No such name in the cemetery records either.

Despite the bitter February cold, Ina “went selling” from her Profit Sharing catalog at various farms: Mary and I went selling at Krekula’s, A. Lindgrens, Mikkola’s, Luukkonen’s, and Hayrynen’s. Another day: Aileen brought me selling to the Elm River. This all resulted in her “goods” arriving in the mail at the end of the month, and it seems her brother did at least some of the delivering: Charles was Rahko’s and Trasti’s way to bring my stuff.

Once or twice a week she walked to the mailbox, which was two miles from the farm. In February she had letters from people named Martha, Lillian, Mary, and Ralph - two letters from Ralph actually, a correspondence that continued through the ensuing months. She also sent camera film in for developing, and ordered new film.

Winters in Toivola were long, cold, snowy and dark; conditions that prevented much variety to life when compared to late spring through fall. There simply wasn’t as much to do beyond gathering indoors to socialize, and Saturdays were about going to the hall to dance. After a January lull in events, Ina was back there on February 15th with her sister Helen. Most weekends there was live music, though nothing all that formal, but on this day someone named John brought his phonograph, essentially serving as the DJ. They had “lots of fun,” with Kelley bringing Ina and her friend Lillian home by sleigh in nice moonlight, stopping at a camp along the way where they talked and ate apples. She finally stepped into the house at 4 AM. They kept some late hours - her sister Helen, who was seventeen, followed at 6 AM.

She and her friends traveled in a convoy on the 19th to a birthday party at the hall: The whole gang from Riihi Country came (the neighboring community of Misery Bay). She listed all thirty-four attendees. It was Kelley who once again brought her home, arriving at 3 AM. They stayed “behind the fence” for a while, and this time he “got fresh” with her for a bit, refusing to let her go inside.

During her third trip to the hall that month? Talk about fun! I was on the floor many times. Fun after too, were playing games. Fine time. She got home at 7 AM, and though her sisters slept most of the day, she only managed an hour.

March 1930 Big gang of boys were over today, took pictures. Both Ina and her sister Emma had inexpensive Kodak Brownie cameras, and there was frequent mention of sending away film for processing. Those precious photos would make their way into albums that were kept at the farm for all to enjoy, but in the 1980s the vacant house was rented out, burning down that winter and taking the photos with it. I read once that the first thing most people hope to salvage from a house fire are the photo albums. Understandable, a loss all-around.

In March, Ina’s brother Toivo and his fiancée, Hulda, went to town to get married, siblings Anna and Bill serving as witnesses. There is mention of going sledding that month with her sister Emma and friends, and with some milder days she made two trips to the family’s lakeshore cabin with her sisters and some of their Heikkinen cousins. Three days in a row conditions were right for skating on the farm’s pond, attracting several boys.

Ina led the life of a social butterfly, by no means a reserved Finn. Her siblings were outgoing as well, those I was able to meet anyway. On the 5th she listened to the radio during a night spent at her cousins, the Luukkonens. The next day she was to the Lamberg farm, returning home at 1 AM. The day after that she was to the hall, returning home at 3 AM. On the 11th she attended a birthday party at the Naasko’s for someone named Ted, listing all thirty-two people in attendance. Lots of fun of course, home at 4 AM.

She did her chores early on the 22nd to get to the hall where “more than ever before was dancing,” and walked home with her friend Lillian, a three-mile trek through the woods in the early morning hours. On March 27th, after a day of babysitting for a neighbor, she and her sisters Emma and Anna went to the Naasko’s, then the Rinkinen’s, then to the Perala School, and finally to the Perala farm for a Carl’s birthday party: Talk about fun. All the bunch was there. Walked home with Charlie M, home 3:30 AM. On the 30th she wrote that her sister Anna had gone with friends to a local hall to hear accordionist Viola Turpeinen play.

April 1930 At the start of April Ina and friend Lillian “took the horse” to a birthday party at the Naasko’s for someone named Benny. They left the horse at Spiegel’s before walking the rest. Two teams hauled other attendees there: Naasko’s and Autio’s teams were all full. The horses wore cowbells. Talk about the crowd! Had lots of fun on the way back too, came with Naasko’s horses. Got home at 3:15. Her sister Anna and cousin Helä also attended the party, and perhaps brought the family horse home.

A walk to the hall with her sister Helen ended up being “loads of fun,” no surprise. Wilfred Lindgren, who would marry Helen, brought them home with his car. The following Saturday was a bust: Helen and I walked to the hall tonight but nothing there, just lots of boys. Wilfred and Toivo N. took us home, were behind the fence for awhile. There were numerous references in her diary to being “behind the fence,” perhaps it was a way to evade curious eyes from up at the house.

On the 10th, a party for her brother Bill was held in “Kallio’s Big Kitchen” – a restaurant or just someone with a big kitchen? Though she didn’t attempt to list everyone this time, she did count them - sixty-eight people showed up.

Ina, her sisters Emma and Helen, and the Johnson girls went walking on the ice banks along the lakeshore mid-month. Had lots of fun. Laughed so that our stomachs hurt.

The diary ends on April 23rd with a simple entry: Cold. Was to mailbox.

Ina died in April of 2010 at the age of ninety-four. The following summer I moved back home, and that’s when I found her diary in a desk drawer with other mementos. I had no idea it existed until then, nor did I take an interest in my family history until a few years later. How I wish I’d talked to her about her youth; how pleased she would have been at my interest! I remember stopping at the Toivola cemetery with her when I was in my teens so that we could tidy a few of the family graves, how she paused at one point to gaze across the cemetery, saying with sadness that so many people from her youth were gone - so many of the people mentioned in the diary. It was something I couldn’t relate to at the time.

One of the few stories I recall her telling from her childhood was of walking to the Station with her sisters to visit one of the stores, what would have been a twelve-mile round trip, though maybe they managed to find a ride back home. I remember this story because of the distance and because she said she had just eleven cents to spend, about two dollars today. It makes me cry every time I think of it. I miss her so much.

Read Part One of the diary here.

Read some of my childhood memories of camping with Ina in Misery Bay here.

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My great-grandma Emma Rantanen emigrated from Finland when she was a young woman. She married Kalle “Charles” Heikkinen, who was born in the Copper Country just four months after his parents arrived from Finland. Together they had nine children, four boys and five girls, and raised them in Toivola on a ninety-acre dairy farm that’d originally been Charles’ parent’s homestead. My grandma Ina, born in 1915, was their sixth child.

At various times in her life, Ina kept a simple diary, jotting down at least a few lines every day, always with a mention of the weather, of where the family had gone visiting, and of who’d visited them - it was a lively home. She had her chores to do, including milking the cows, washing clothes, ironing and baking. Often an entire day was devoted to a given household task. These things were only mentioned in passing, however; it was the active social life she and her siblings maintained, this while living out in the country, that filled the pages. The farm kids clearly sought excuses to get together, whether to the hall to dance, to the lakeshore to camp, or by attending parties at various homes. She often described these events in terms of fun. Lots of fun! … Loads of fun! … Talk about fun!

This post covers the start of a one-year diary she kept some ninety-five years ago, from May 1929 to April 1930, when she was fourteen. (You can skip to the second part here.) Her grandma Karoliina was living with the family, and five of her siblings were still at home: Anna, Helen, Emma, Charles and Eino. Her older sister Ida and brothers Toivo and Bill had moved out, but visited often. Some details then, month by month…

May 1929 May was mostly about who went where: Was at Helmi’s with the bike … Grandma went to stay at Luukkonen’s … Bill and Charles went lakeshore … Ma and Pa were town … Mary and Herman were hothouse (her aunt and uncle had come for sauna) …

A concise entry on the 27th: Nice day. We washed clothes.

The following day: Nice day. Washed carpets.

June 1929 There was the end-of-year school picnic at the Elm River and the school teacher came to the house for supper. Ina washed clothes one day, baked another. Her new swimsuit came in the mail and she “put the order” for overalls. A night was spent at her favorite aunt Mary’s house, and her brother Bill went to work at “the camps.”

As in every Finnish American community, the “hall” featured prominently, and for Ina, this meant dancing. In June, she rode the bike there one day, walked with her sister Helen on another (apparently there was only one bike), returning home at 1:30 in the morning. It was a three mile trek from the farm, and so it seems there was little fear in journeying through the dark woods at all hours. That same night she noted her sister Anna didn’t come home, so I assume she stayed at a friend’s. No such thing as calling home to let anyone know though; it’d be a few more decades before phone lines reached Toivola. Emma and Charles were clearly trusting and open-minded parents, letting the kids go wherever and do whatever they pleased, so long as chores were done.

There were several overnight trips to the family’s lakeshore cabin, located where the Elm River emptied into Lake Superior, a stretch of shoreline now known as Agate Beach. As with the hall, it was a walk of three miles. They were squatters, in that they didn’t actually own the land the cabin was built on, but most people didn’t back then. She’d go with her siblings, and sometimes with her parents. On Juhannus, the family brought along a boat, and she and two friends walked past “Lahti’s” to build a bonfire “on our own shore,” as she called it. Lahti’s was about a mile south of the cabin.

July 1929 The men were to the Station … Helmi got a baby … The guys went circus … Ma and Pa were to Emil K’s hothouse … The men started to build our new garage …

On a day when just the kids were at home? Loads of fun!

Several days were spent picking wild blueberries, a broody hen was put on a nest, and two of the cows, Daisy and Kaunio, had their calves. One day Ina and her sister Ida milked the cows, then those of their cousins, the Luukkonen’s, who were away from home.

She noted how warm the water was after swimming at the cabin, relatively warm for Lake Superior anyway. A group went to Misery Bay for a day, a stretch of beach where the Misery River emptied into Lake Superior. She was to Lake Eva on another, where she picked wild roses. Her overalls came in the mail and church summer school started. Haymaking took place from the 18th to the 29th, minus the two Sundays.

August 1929 The girls were to a dance at the hall. A day was spent ironing clothes, with mention of the Luukkonen girls washing theirs at the Elm River. A work crew spent two days on the farm harvesting the wheat with a cooperatively-owned thresher. One day just three people were left at home: Ina, her grandma, and her sister Emma. A relatively empty house must have been rare, since she always noted when that was the case.

On the 22nd: Helga, Ellen, Esther, Helen, Emma, Henry, Veikko, Urho, Reino, Sylvia, George, Eino and I were lakeshore for a night. Lots of fun. Didn’t sleep much. Got up at 5 o’clock. Slept on the shore.

September 1929 Us kids drove the truck to shore, party at the Elm, home 1:30AM. This may have been one final hurrah for those about to report back to school. That included Ina’s younger siblings, but not Ina herself. Seventh grade had been the end of her formal education, by her own choice. Most of the farm kids quit after 7th or 8th.

Pa brought Grandma Karoliina to town. There was a “rotten” play performed at the hall. She washed clothes with the new washing machine. A Tyyne Salmi died, then a Mr. Rinkinen, her parents attending the funerals. One night the cows didn’t come home, but apparently they did the next day. The potatoes were picked at month’s end and she attended the county fair on two separate days.

October 1929 A doctor was sent for, likely from the Trimountain hospital, to tend to her sister Anna, with no further mention. There were meetings at the church, and meetings at the hall. Ma and Pa were to Atlantic (Mine). Her brother Bill went to Covington to hunt. Every so often she’d throw in a random Finnish word or phrase, likely something that’d amused her. This month it was a cryptic Syä säärdiniä, which means “eat sardines.”

November 1929 She “put the order” for new stockings; they arrived five days later. The mailman had begun delivering six days a week to the family’s mailbox that was at the intersection with the Misery Bay Road, two miles from the farm. Her brother John killed a pig and the guys went deer hunting. A woman named Ida visited from Detroit. There were more meetings at the hall. Two days before Thanksgiving a day was spent cleaning out the pantry, the kitchen the next.

December 1929 A good portion of December was stormy, including a six-day stretch that delayed the start of logging on the farm. Even school was cancelled, which leads me to wonder, how did they find out unless they actually went? Once the sky cleared, her brothers used the tractor to get to the Station, and Ina remarked on the beautiful moonlight. She was to the hall on skis, and she and her sister Emma skied to their friends’ farm, the Lamberg’s, during more stormy weather. It took them two hours to get there and they stayed a night, listening to a car battery-powered radio until 1:00 AM.

There was the annual holiday program at the school, with a bunch of kids staying after to dance. At home, the tree was brought into the house and presents opened on Christmas Eve. On the 26th, the family celebrated “second Christmas,” and two days a later, the men were finally able to start hauling logs. On New Year’s Eve she was back at the Lamberg’s where this time the radio was “on the blink.” She stayed till 2:00 anyway, returning home at 3:00 AM…

Read Part Two of the diary here.

They called him on the phone to offer what was by no means an insignificant amount of cash, though they wondered if he’d be interested in a jewelry tree instead, handcrafted by the Auxiliary members. A jewelry tree? It was 1981, I was eight years old, and I drove with him to the VFW Lounge to check it out.

Never before nor since had I seen such a thing. Over the past year, the ladies had sought donations of unwanted jewelry in anticipation of this masterpiece. Hundreds of pieces had been glued to a sheet of black velvet fabric, a long string of pearls wrapped around it all to create the outline of an evergreen tree. The trunk was in the form of a heavy gold chain stacked upon itself, while other necklaces served as ropes of garland. Star shapes were glued in the sky, and dangly pieces hung from the tree’s bows. Multicolored lights strung along the back had been fed through to the front. All-in-all, it was stunning. Measuring over two by three feet and encased in a substantial, repurposed wooden frame, it was also heavy.

There were a few smaller trees laid out on the table as well; the auxiliary had a holiday craft sale coming up and planned to sell them if the raffle winners chose cash instead. My dad asked what I thought – take the money or the tree? Of course there was no question in my mind – the tree! And so that’s what he chose, and if you knew my dad that was a pretty big move, siding with frivolity. Perhaps he felt pressured by all those Auxiliary ladies in their red jackets gazing at him expectantly, but more so I think it was my enthusiasm coupled with his own sentimentality when it came to Christmas.

My parents were divorced, but my dad lived just down the street. He hung up the Jewel Tree, as we would call it, on a wall in his living room. I visited him often, and oftentimes brought a friend along. We’d plug the tree’s lights in and gaze at it for hours, and that’s when the magic occurred. Each time we’d discover pieces we hadn’t seen before. Not just from one year to the next, but from one day to the next. How was that possible when we’d given it such a thorough going over? Had elves come in the night to swap them out?

Sitting in the darkness gazing at its beauty, we’d devise all sorts of challenges and games. Who could find the most heart-shaped pieces, the most leaves, the most flowers - all common themes in pre-1980s costume jewelry. We’d choose our top five favorite pieces, being sure to remember where they were when it came time for show and tell. We’d even try to guess one another’s favorites, though being that we were kids, we stood a good chance in that we gravitated to the predictable, the easily identified objects, readily found: the snowman, the owl, the wreath, the ship. My tastes have certainly since evolved; it’s design that sways me now.

My dad would say the tree ended up being well worth the “price” he paid in not taking the money, because of all the fun we had in studying it over the years, but what is its actual worth today? It doesn’t matter; I’m not selling. I’ve had to replace the lights and glue a few pieces back on, but beyond that, it’s as stellar as ever. Each Christmas I bring it back out and give it a good study, resurrecting the good feelings it generated in me as a child. I reacquaint myself with the many familiar pieces and the old favorites, but as always, I find myself surprised by those I don’t recall. This holiday season that included an engraved, heart-shaped charm, obscured behind a dangling necklace. I’m sure I noticed it as a kid; we likely giggled over it then, but this time it registered different. The Jewel Tree is still performing its magic.

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In June and July of 1938, just before the outbreak of World War II, Johanna took an eight-week vacation to Europe, travelling to France, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, and Finland. She regularly wrote letters back to Detroit, to both the staff at the library where she worked, and to the Kampermans. The letters were eventually returned to her and I was able to read them this past summer, providing enough material for a lengthy series, but I focused on her time in Finland for now. You can read about her week in Helsinki here, or see photos from her week visiting family in Pyhäjärvi here.

During her trip, it was fascinating in that Johanna not only sent letters, but received them - letters from the Kampermans, addressed to the various hotels she stayed at. They needed to stay about two weeks ahead of her - the four letters they sent to Finland, for instance, were mailed while she was still in Italy. It was mid-June when they wrote from their house on Longfellow Avenue in the Detroit area’s upscale community of Highland Park. I felt I had to include their side of the correspondence in this blog series, a glimpse into the rather interesting life of the good doctor and his wife.

In 1909, Henry Ford established his first assembly line plant within Highland Park, and fifteen years later, the city became home to the Chrysler Corporation. The population grew accordingly, by over 1000% in one ten-year span, from 1910 to 1920, and held steady for the next thirty years, right up until the Ford Motor Company pulled out, creating a domino effect. Today, Highland Park is an example of urban blight brought on by the usual trigger: the loss of a community’s tax base. But back in the Kamperman’s time, it was still the definition of urban prosperity, a model community with immaculate neighborhoods occupied by the middle and upper classes, with excellent facilities to serve those residents, from top-notch schools to the centerpiece of the city, the McGregor Library, Johanna’s workplace.

Dr. Kamperman worked at Detroit’s Harper Hospital. As chief of staff and head of the Gynecology Department, he was busy as always, one night delivering two babies, the next morning performing two surgeries. Yikes – that’s some serious multi-tasking; imagine that being allowed today. But his only complaint was of having to go out to this dinner or that dinner - four in one week! Too many social engagements when he liked nothing better than dinner at home followed by staying at home. Even on his birthday he got screwed – after a day of work, he was looking forward to a relaxing evening, but someone rang up Abbie and she felt she couldn’t get out of dinner at the golf club. Then they had to sit by the pool after, then they felt they had to invite everyone over for a drink after that. The guests had the audacity to choose anise and apricot brandy, with the doctor and his wife feeling they had to “fall in line.” Some birthday!

Abbie had been busy as well with club activities and “important” debutante parties - her word, one used with sarcasm. The Society section in the newspaper had reported there’d been seventy-four already that summer. She wrote that they’d have to be sure and plan one for Johanna when she returned: You have not been properly presented. Isn’t that dreadful! (More sarcasm.) Weddings too, most recently that of Dr. Seeley’s daughter, such a newsworthy event, a photographer from the paper showed up. (Dr. Ward Seeley was a close colleague of Dr. Kamperman and lived on Wildemere Avenue where according to the 1930 census, his family had a live-in Finnish maid.)

The Kampermans were avid patrons of the Detroit arts scene and funded numerous student scholarships. Abbie, who served as President of the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts, had recently given a report to the Artist’s Market and was working on an article for the State Fair’s Art Department, an assignment she was still bewildered to have been saddled with. What next? Parading the cows? She just wanted some time to sit and weave at her loom!

They’d been hoping to follow in Johanna’s footsteps, to travel to Europe the following spring, but with talk of war they figured they might have to hold off. The economic recession was getting worse in the United States, so many people without jobs, the doctor wondered if some of his patients might soon stop paying their bills. (You know what some say is good for the economy? War.)

One of their maids, Beatrice, was going on vacation soon, followed by the other maid, Helen. They had their doubts they’d ever see Helen again - nothing ominous, just that she’d probably be turning in her notice.

It’d been too hot to move around much for a few days (no AC back then), but several student artists had dropped by to visit, joining the doctor in drinking his nightly highball. Abbie reported it’d been “eventful” for him in that she’d finally “learned” to drink and enjoy a Tom Collins. He was so pleased; he’d finally won out.

George had been taking Ranger, their German Shepherd, over to Outer Drive to let him run, following alongside with the car - three miles on a recent day. Despite the usual daily walks through the neighborhood, the dog had recently received a scolding from Abbie for leaving a “little pile” on the basement floor, down near the wine cellar. (Johanna would reply, I am ashamed of Ranger for being so bad in the basement.)

They very much looked forward to Johanna’s return, and wished they could be in New York to welcome her off the boat. They reminded her to be sure and have a “Finnish bath,” a sauna, before leaving Finland. Having used their world atlas to trace her journey through each of the countries she visited, what would become of their hope to follow in her footsteps the following spring? They would not get their wish. In 1939, Hitler’s troops invaded Poland, triggering the start of World War II.

Return to Part One here.

Return to Part Two here.

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At the age of sixteen, Johanna left school and moved to Detroit to work as a domestic servant, and that’s when something most fortunate occurred - she ended up in the home of Dr. George and Abbie Kamperman. The couple quickly grew fond of her, and realizing her academic potential, saw to it that she finished high school before putting her through both college and graduate school. Johanna never married, spent thirty-six years working as a librarian in Highland Park, and remained close to the Kampermans the rest of her life. The couple had no children of their own, but came to consider Johanna their daughter.

In the summer of 1938, when she was thirty, Johanna went on an eight-week vacation to Europe with her friend and co-worker, Helen. Letters documenting the trip were sent back to the Kampermans - letters they eventually returned to her and that I was able to read this past summer. For six weeks she traveled through France, Italy, Switzerland, and Sweden, providing plenty of material for a future blog series, but I’m of course partial to writing about her time in Finland. First there was a week in Helsinki - you can read that previous post here. Then there was a week visiting family in Pyhäjärvi, the topic of this post.

In anticipation, Johanna wrote to the Kampermans, It will be interesting to see real Finnish life. Unfortunately, that would also be her final letter to them during her trip, so no written record of what transpired. Instead, there are photos, ones that give an idea as to what that “real” Finnish life was like in rural, 1930s Finland.

None of the photos were labeled, and they weren’t kept with the letters, but one featured a church. A quick Google search provided a match to that which still stands in Pyhäjärvi today. From this, it was easy to conclude that the entire set of photos was taken by Johanna in and around the town during her visit there in the summer of 1938, and that the people featured in them were her relatives.  

I was already familiar with two other photos that’d belonged to Johanna’s mother of family back in Finland. Lots of “Finnish smiles” - even the dogs took part - though in one the baby appears too young to have yet caught on. Comparing faces from these older photos, I made two positive IDs to Johanna’s set: a man I believe was her uncle, and an aunt who struck a particular resemblance to Johanna’s mother.

The aunt was purportedly uber-religious, and certainly looked the part. Dressed all in black, head to toes to fingers with a black huivi to complete the ensemble, she rode a bicycle down the dirt roads, purse in hand, while it appears Johanna rode in a wagon.

There were plenty more Finnish smiles to be had at the various farms they visited. It’s also possible some of these people were Johanna’s father’s relatives.

The buildings were similar to those the Finnish Americans built early on in the Copper Country, with squared logs joined at the corners, some of the buildings interconnected. Several of the houses had corner trim to hide the log joints. Some of these buildings may still stand in Pyhäjärvi today, perhaps still inhabited by Johanna’s (and my) relatives.

The main house had two entrances side by side, giving the impression of a duplex, the sheds lopsided with age. The entry on the left was likely for everyday family use, while the right opened to a more formal room, used to greet guests. A rose bush blooming in the yard proved popular.

Two little girls play in the barnyard, both barefoot, one with pockets in the shape of hearts sewn onto her dress, the other holding a kissa, a kitty. Johanna’s aunt holds a pan of milk in her hand, perhaps for the cat.

And that’s about it - you’ll have to use your imagination to tell the rest of the story.

From Pyhäjärvi, Johanna made her way back to Turku, then to Stockholm, Sweden, where she met back up with her co-worker and travel companion, Helen, who’d been visiting her own family in France. From Stockholm they traveled to Hamburg, Germany, where their ship, the S.S. New York, departed back to the United States.

No texting, emails, phone calls, or video chatting back then…just letters, and while she traveled through Europe, it was fascinating in that Johanna not only sent them, but received them - letters from the Kampermans, four alone while in Helsinki. Here’s how it worked: they had her itinerary, including what hotels she’d be staying at where. They had to keep about two weeks ahead of her, mailing the Helsinki-bound letters, for example, while she was still in Italy. The hope was that they’d be waiting for her when she checked in at her hotel, or would arrive during her stay. The envelopes were mostly addressed as such: Johanna’s name, the hotel name, the city and country, and her expected arrival date. Then they’d watch the “sailing lists” in the newspaper to see what ship might deliver those letters from New York to Europe. It’s simply amazing in that a total of twenty-seven letters sent to six different countries over the course of six weeks all managed to arrive as planned. (That’s four to five letters a week - clearly they feared she’d be lonely, or perhaps they were!)

It was mid-June when they addressed the letters to Finland, writing from their house on Longfellow Drive in what was then Detroit’s upscale city within a city of Highland Park. I felt I had to include them in this blog series as well, a brief look into the life of the good doctor and his wife, who essentially considered Johanna their daughter. You can read that post here.

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I’d always understood Johanna’s life to have been a most interesting one for a girl born into poverty in Finland and raised on a small dairy farm in Toivola, Michigan. This past summer, I learned just how true that was. At the age of sixteen, she left school and moved to Detroit to work as a domestic servant, and that’s when something rather fortunate occurred - she ended up in the home of Dr. George and Abbie Kamperman. The couple quickly grew fond of her, and realizing her academic potential, saw to it that she finished high school before putting her through both college and graduate school. She never married, and spent the next thirty-six years working as a librarian in Highland Park. She also remained close to the Kampermans the rest of her life; the couple had no children of their own, but came to consider Johanna their daughter.

In June and July of 1938, when she was thirty, Johanna spent eight weeks vacationing in Europe. This was just before the outbreak of WWII, and signs of tension and political unrest were prevalent, starting with her being harassed by a Nazi-sympathizing fellow passenger aboard the German ocean liner she took from New York to Germany. Nonetheless, the trip was a success as she travelled, in order, through France, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, and Finland. (She was only in Germany for as long as it took the train to get her out.) Throughout her journey she regularly wrote letters back to Detroit, both to the staff at the library where she worked, and to the Kampermans. She also took lots of photos according to those letters, but most are unaccounted for today. What we do have is the correspondence - the Kampermans saved the letters she wrote to them, eventually returning them to her and providing plenty of material for a future blog series. Her time in Finland, however, deserves to stand alone (of course), starting with a week spent in Helsinki (this post), followed by a week visiting family in rural Pyhäjärvi (Part Two).

In the 1930s you didn’t just show up to a foreign country and wing it, hence the popularity of travel agencies to put together your itinerary, booking hotels in various cities, arranging for train and boat travel, even buying tickets and in some instances having a representative meet you at a station or port to make sure things went smoothly. Such was the case for Johanna.

Having arrived by boat to Turku, she then took a train to Helsinki, amused along the way at being addressed as “Rouva” in the third person by both the porter and a “fine lady” in her compartment. She was essentially “Madam” when she’d been expecting more of a “Miss.” It was also a piece of grand luck, as she described it in a ten-page letter to the Kampermans, to have run into a college friend, Maud, while still in Sweden. Discovering they’d be in Helsinki at the same time, they decided to explore the city together.

Though born in Finland, Johanna was just two years old when she and her mother emigrated from Pyhäjärvi to the Copper Country of Michigan, so all was new to her. She visited straight away to the Finland Travel Bureau where she met with a representative named Ms. Strandberg, who went above and beyond by inviting her and Maud on a little tour, taking them to the Social Museum and the main cemetery (lots of famous Finns!), and even showing them her cooperative apartment, which Johanna described as different from any she’d seen before, modern and quite simple, the very terms one might use to describe apartments in Finland today.

Though the weather was rainy and cold, Johanna noticed the natives carried their coats when the sun did shine, despite the chill. And though disappointed to find concerts and theater productions on hiatus during the summer months, there was good music to be had at the many outdoor cafes, where there also seemed to be an awful lot of drinking going on, both liquor and coffee.

She and Maud spent several days taking in the city’s architecture, first on a commercial sightseeing tour to get their bearings, then on their own, with mention of the Central Railway Station, the Parliament building, and both the Lutheran and Orthodox cathedrals. She described Helsinki as well-planned and laid out with lots of lovely parks, and Finland unlike any other country she’d been to, largely, she surmised, because of its history. It was a poor nation but startlingly progressive, very up-and-coming in her eyes. A country that had just recently started to live, soon to take its place among modern nations due to a wealth of good talent among its citizenry. Spot-on, Johanna, though World War II would delay this by about fifteen years.

She found that in general, the business wheels in the city turned slowly. Upon asking one of the hotel chambermaids about the possibility of having three of her dresses dry-cleaned, she was told it’d take ten days to have them returned. The maid tried to appease her, insisting that they weren’t dirty anyway. And this, Johanna mused, from a country with a reputation for cleanliness.

Her one “big quarrel” with Helsinki? Swedish. She’d been looking forward to testing her Finnish fluency, but most everyone wanted to speak Swedish to her - even some of the chambermaids. (Swedish was still considered the language of the “upper class” in Finland. I wonder if her tailored clothing led them to this bias.) There was a clerk in a shop who spoke Swedish to her even after she’d addressed him in Finn. Exasperating. Visiting a large bookstore she’d heard so much about, she found the titles displayed in Swedish as well. She’d never fit into Finnish “society,” she surmised, adding with sarcasm that wherever she went, she was probably labeled as “that uneducated peasant girl.”

The food was good, with most dinners eaten at her hotel or Maud’s, but she needed help interpreting the menus, unfamiliar with culinary terms. Shopping was a must - the Kampermans took great interest in handicrafts and artistry, so Johanna made sure to report her findings to them, and while she observed some very nice peasant linens and fabrics for upholstering, she found the glass in Finland lacking, not nearly as fine as in Sweden. Mostly cut glasswork, very ordinary and “Woolworth quality.” Ouch. Give it some time, Johanna. She did find what she referred to as “some rather nice silver jewelry” - a couple of pins, a chain, and some earrings, all stamped with symbols from the Kalevala. They are not anything so very wonderful, but they’re not expensive and I’d ten times rather have this than that awful Florentine stuff. Oh lord – she may have in fact been referring to the very wonderful Kalevala Koru brand; the company had been founded just one year prior, in 1937. I don’t know where this jewelry of hers ended up, but people would trip over each other to get their hands on it today. Family heirlooms sadly lost to history.

Ultimately there wasn’t enough time to see all she’d have liked during her one week in Helsinki, but she also looked forward to returning home, warning the Kampermans that her tongue would wag for some time to come. It’d been a wonderful trip, a real eye-opener, and after speaking so much German, French, Italian and Finnish (even if her skills were still in their “weak and tender stage”), she feared it was her English that might be shaky for a while.

There was one final destination, however: Pyhäjärvi. She’d received a short but cordial letter from her aunt living there, welcoming her and leaving her with the impression that the woman was even more religious than Johanna’s very religious grandmother, if that was even possible: I’d better watch my P’s and Q’s! And so she was off to central Finland to meet her relatives. It will be interesting to see real Finnish life, she wrote. It was also her final letter to the Kampermans - if only there’d been one more! Instead, there are photos, ones that epitomize 1930s rural, “real” Finnish life. You can read that post here.

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But this post is about something else that happened when my mom was in her teens - the family achieving five minutes of fame for having a pet whitetail deer. At the highway, does were often struck and killed by cars, sometimes leaving behind tiny fawns, and in the spring of 1954 my mom and her brother Jake found what they assumed to be an orphan, sickly and in a weakened condition in the nearby woods. Jake carried the fawn home where they bottle fed the deer back to health, naming him Bimbo. I say “him” because that was my understanding having heard this story while growing up, and back in the 1950s “bimbo” was a term used to describe women as well as men - a man quite ridiculous or dumb.

The deer became a bit of an attraction, even coming inside the house and going from room to room, begging for cigarettes. Not that he was a smoker - he’d eat them to everyone’s amusement. Bimbo was essentially a pet deer, something not everyone in the community approved of.

Come winter, Bimbo was featured on the family Christmas card. Greetings from our house to your house.

The following spring, “Bim” appeared in a set of six photos in the Daily Mining Gazette along with Jake and my mom. Standing on the porch in her winter coat, her chin resting atop Bimbo’s head (or perhaps she was pretending to offer him a kiss), one caption read, That’s what you call the old time affection. And if those ol’ conservation officers ever come around, you just show them how much you care for us.

I doubt my mom actually said that; the captions were pretty cheesy. How can a fellow be friendly when he’s hungry? pipes up Jake.

The Milwaukee Journal picked it up, printing one of the photos and describing Bimbo as a “special friend” to my mom and the family cat, who lay between them on the porch. The Kananens found the deer in the woods in a weakened condition and nursed it back to health. Now it won’t leave their home. Of course not - he needed his cigarettes.

When hunting season approached, Ina tied a bright red ribbon around the deer’s neck to dissuade hunters from shooting him, but a knock came at the door – one of those ol’ conservation officers handed the ribbon to her with a big smile on his face. She was pretty upset – the man was smiling! My mom’s younger brother Jerry was even more upset. And my mom? Jake? The cat? Not sure how they handled it.

What I didn’t realize until recently was that there was a second Bimbo. Perhaps a whole bunch of Bimbos. In another set of photos, in color now faded and dated 1957, a spotted fawn is being bottle fed by the family. Another orphan? Hopefully that was the case and not just finding naturally submissive fawns in the woods and deciding to bring them home. Or maybe someone else found it and everyone said bring it to the Kananens, they have experience with that sort of thing.

I have no idea as to the fate of Bimbo the II.

I have to add that it appears the ladies in these photos dressed up and did their hair and makeup for the camera, but the fact is the 1950s were just a styling time, even in Toivola, Michigan. A topic for a future post.

That’s how my mom, in her diary, summed up her marriage in the months leading up to my parent’s divorce. I can confirm it was an accurate statement. So this isn’t going to be a romantic post. Instead, it serves to describe a 1950s U.P. small-town wedding done right, even if a bit rushed – my mom was pregnant, though my dad would say they’d been planning to get married anyway.

The invites followed the traditional protocol, in that they were sent out by the bride’s parents to announce their daughter’s marriage to said groom.

For the rehearsal, someone typed up instructions: who walked down the aisle in what order, who stood where, who sat where, and how to march back out. My dad drew a diagram on the back that included his dog Fido waiting just outside the church door, and the getaway car with an arrow pointing in the direction of Misery Bay along with the words, To the country. He copyrighted it 1957.

The day before the wedding, a small luncheon was held at my mom’s parent’s home in Toivola. A few snapshots commemorated the event. The food included no less than three cakes set out on a table, all surely homemade and divine. There was mingling and some dancing and toasts, everyone all smiles except my conservative Grandma Lillian who considered drinking and dancing a sin. Her husband grinned from ear to ear though with a beer bottle in hand. Perhaps he’d been granted leeway on this special occasion, or perhaps there was a good swatting in his near future.

The announcement printed in the Daily Mining Gazette was a fine example of the descriptive style typical of that era…

A beautiful candlelight ceremony highlighted by colorful fall flowers took place at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Toivola on Sept. 28 at 7 p.m., when the Rev. John Juntilla united in marriage Joan Arlene Kananen, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wilho Kananen of Toivola; and Wilmer Wiitala, son of Mr. and Mrs. Wilho Wiitala, also of Toivola.

The bride, escorted to the alter by her father, was radiant in a bouffant waltz-length gown with a ruffled overskirt over bridal satin and a fitted lace jacket featuring a peter-pan collar and pointed sleeves. Her lace-trimmed veil fell from a crown of seed pearls and sequins. She carried a white orchid on a Bible.

Mrs. Barbara L, a friend of the bride as the matron-of-honor, carried a colonial bouquet of pink roses and white carnations. Cousin of the bride, Karen L as bridesmaid, carried a colonial bouquet of yellow roses and pink carnations. Their gowns were of identical lace over taffeta, styled with flowing panels and cowl necklines, in copen blue and shrimp pink, respectively. Their headbands and gauntlets matched the gowns.

Attending as best man was Clifford L, friend of the bridegroom; Jack K, brother of the bride was groomsman; and ushers were Carl K and Lloyd W.

The bride’s mother chose a taupe crepe sheath dress with beige accessories. Her corsage was of yellow roses. The mother of the bridegroom wore a blue crepe dress with black accessories. Her corsage was of pink roses.

Mrs. John B was the soloist accompanied by Mrs. Ingrid L on the organ.

A reception was held in the church parlors where the couple greeted some 300 guests.

The bride is a graduate of Jeffers High School, class of 1956, and was employed at the University of Michigan. The groom is a graduate of Jeffers High School, class of 1951. He spent four years in the Navy. He is employed with the White Pine Copper Co.

The couple will make their home in Green, near Ontonagon. 

I don’t know that she was radiant, but my mother was lovely, dramatically penciled in eyebrows and all. Her dress really was top-notch 1950s bouffant, the kind of dress that’d one day be a vintage treasure (she’d sell it soon after the divorce). The bridesmaid gowns had serious wow factor too - Copenhagen blue and shrimp pink, colors that’d make it a shame the photos were in black and white. That didn’t matter with the men’s attire: white tuxedos with black cummerbunds, pants, and bow tie. It was surely the one and only time my grandfathers wore something that spiffy.

The church, St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran, was just off the highway on the Misery Bay Road. Built in 1922, or rather dug, it was a “basement church” for the first 28 years, and not the first one I’ve heard of. An actual building was put up in 1950.

The ceremony was mostly attended by immediate family and close friends, but hundreds of guests showed up afterword for the dinner reception in the church parlors, fancy talk for basement, where they sat at tables and on additional chairs set out along the walls. Others stood with plate and cup in hand, the men dressed in suits and ties, the women in dresses and hats (mostly pillbox style, though my Grandma Ina’s looked like a giant bottle cap and Lillian’s included, surprisingly, a black fishnet veil.)

Two hired photographers milled about, holding up flashbulbs to capture candid photos. The head table was adorned with tapered candles and tall vases of gladioli and carnations. The food was traditional Lutheran Church fare - think meat and potatoes, egg and ham salad sandwiches, Jello molds, and a variety of delectable cakes and cookies to go with coffee served from a massive urn.

According to the bridal book, out-of-town guests traveled from places near and sort of far: Keweenaw Bay, White Pine, Portage Entry, Negaunee, Trenary, the Soo, Detroit, and Ypsilanti. From out of state too: Ashland, Milwaukee, and Duluth. But looking over the lengthy list of gift givers, it was by and large a Toivola crowd.

A four-person crew, friends of my mom, was assigned to opening the beautifully wrapped gifts. After recording who gave what in the bridal book, everything was placed on display so the older ladies could rummage through it a bit and appraise what sort of haul was taking place. The list ended up being five pages long, and is intriguing. Back then, most opted to give an actual present rather than a card and cash. The most popular items were towels, sheets, and pillowcases. Specifically, my parents received nineteen towel sets, fifteen sheet and pillowcase sets, and thirteen pillow case-only sets. Those pillow cases appeared to be the standard gift from unattended male guests, single guys heading to a reception for food and drinks and needing to provide something in exchange. Throw in eight tablecloths and eight blankets, and there were enough linens to supply a sizable family, and so it would be with five kids, for years and years to come. Where my parents stored it all until called into service, I cannot stay.

Other gifts indicative of the era included a Lazy Susan (look it up), ash trays, and several doilies (look them up), the latter surely homemade. Lots of dishes, cookware and cutlery too, with no shortage of salt and pepper shakers in my parent’s future. It seems they must have registered somewhere, given what did result, all in all, in a wide variety of household items. From family and close friends there was a Mix Master, a double boiler, an electric fry pan, a set of silver cutlery, TV lamps, a hamper, a steam iron, and an electric blanket (that cabin in Green was going to be chilly). Most cash gifts fell in the $2 to $5 range, though my mom’s wealthy-for-Toivola Aunt Johanna gave $75. She was an unmarried librarian living in Detroit who had a special affinity for her niece.

Following the dinner, my parents stood for a photo alongside the getaway car - my dad’s 1956 Mercury, covered in crepe paper streamers with a piece of cardboard taped to the back bumper. Just Married. Teetotalers made their way home, while everyone else headed to the South Range Community Hall where starting at 9:30, two accordionists played waltzes and polkas, the beer flowing until half past midnight.

Being sentimental, my mom saved one of the invitations and printed napkins as mementos of the wedding, along with the table place cards and a white orchid, pressed and dried, that’d been atop the bible she held during the ceremony. My dad hung onto the receipts for the decorations, flowers, and tableware. How much had this all set him back?

They honeymooned for five chilly days along the shore of Lake Superior, in a cabin that had a faulty fireplace chimney, nearly smoking them out. Then they set up house in a tiny rental cabin in the tiny town Green, about twelve miles from White Pine. My dad drove one of the underground ore hauling trucks at the mine, and my mom became a housewife, a word she’d come to loathe. The kids began arriving in rapid succession, yet the marriage itself went downhill pretty fast, and so they sometimes do. A bad match, right from the start, though they nailed the small-town, 1950s wedding.

My mom wasn’t much for roughing it, so she usually stayed home to enjoy some peace and quiet while me, my dad, and at least some of my brothers (I had four) piled into our green, snub-nosed, 1968 Dodge Sportsman van. Sometimes a friend or two came along as well - with three rows of bench seats, the van was great for hauling around a bunch of kids. The built-in ashtrays on the armrests were always stuffed with gum wrappers.

We’d leave home at mid-morning on a Saturday, heading up along Highway US-41, passing through a number of abandoned mine towns before the road transformed into a winding, rolling, covered drive, the trees forming a thick canopy above. Rounding a final turn, we entered the village of Copper Harbor, driving past small gift shops and restaurants that lined the main street, making our way to our first stop: Fort Wilkins State Park, where we’d set up camp. A former military post, the park was surrounded by a fence made of tall, weathered logs lined up tightly side by side, their tops carved to ominously sharp points. It brought images of harrowing battle to my young mind, aided by my dad’s claims, but in reality, the soldiers stationed there in the 1800s never saw any real danger. Assigned to keep order during the copper mining boom, they had, in fact, rarely been called to duty.

Our tents were set up along the shore of Lake Fanny Hooe, with gear sorted out before we sat down to lunch at the picnic table. Shaded by tall pine trees and white birch, we ate my mom’s homemade pasties with ketchup – we were definitely a ketchup family, gravy was unheard of. There was watermelon too, thin slices we held by the rind, spitting the seeds on the ground.

The boys would play a game of catch on the dirt road that encircled the campground, throwing a baseball, football, or Frisbee; and I’d wander along the shoreline of the lake, climbing on the gnarled cedar tree roots, leaning over to see what was going on in the clear water. The chipmunks that darted around the campground fascinated me as well. Quietly sitting on a tree stump, I’d toss pieces of cheese popcorn to them, amused at the extent to which they’d stuff their cheeks before running off. 

From the campground, it was an easy walk to the restored military post that gave the park its name. Here was a series of one-story buildings, painted white with sloping roofs and open front porches, open for tour. There was the officer’s quarters, the barracks, the jail, a mess hall and a bake shop. The air smelled a bit musty as we walked along on the painted pine floors checking out the displays, some of which were out in the open, others protected behind glass. They never changed much and I can’t say I was a history buff back then, but my dad was, and he’d point out things that made it more interesting for all of us.

We’d walk through the park’s gift shop after, where I’d longingly gaze at the tiny animal figurines made of porcelain and glass that were displayed inside a lighted, revolving case. My dad, however, considered these a bad investment, steering me instead to a bin full of mystery “grab bags.” These, he insisted, offered the most bang for your buck, and I fell for it every time. Being that it was impossible to tell what was going on inside those sealed, brown paper bags, choosing which ones to buy caused me some anxiety and a great deal of excitement. The hope, of course, was for those tiny, coveted animal figurines, but the reality came in the form of odds and ends the gift shop was otherwise having trouble peddling. This wasn’t like a lottery; there was no “big winner” amongst those grab bags.

After our tour of the fort we’d drive back into town. Copper Harbor wasn’t anywhere near the outdoor recreation mecca it is today with businesses to match. No wilderness outfitters, no coffee shops or brewery. There were very few year-round residents, just summer cottages, but it was already, clearly, a tourist destination, with a small grocery store, a gas station, several restaurants and bars, and a lot of gift shops. Most offered the same souvenirs, t-shirts, and candy as the next, but one stood out to me. The Frontier was reminiscent of an old country general store, painted barn red with rocking chairs set out on an open, full-length porch. Bells chimed on the screen door as we entered, a clerk greeting us at the front counter where candy canes in a variety of flavors sat in tall glass jars. Shelves, glass display cases, and barrels held additional wares.

Every year I picked out something at this shop to bring back for my mom, and more than once I gravitated to the alarmingly fragrant, decorative soaps shaped like flowers and seashells. We picked out candy treats too, and for me, it was those candy canes. Such sweet, sugary goodness, even if I always managed to cut my tongue on the sharp edges as the sugar dissolved. So worth it.

From town, we’d drive up Brockway Mountain to the West Bluff, a three-mile journey along a narrow, potholed road that plateaued several times, only to dip and climb again. Are we there yet? Patting the dashboard, my dad urged his “buggy” onward as I sat beside him on the van’s center console, actually a large metal cover that housed the engine. Sometimes, especially in summer, that metal got so hot, a blanket had to be placed on top so I wouldn’t burn my bare legs. No such thing as a seatbelt while perched there either, not that my dad was a proponent of seatbelts. According to his logic, we were more likely to die if we wore them, trapped inside the van versus being hurled to the supposed freedom and safety that was outside the vehicle.

This drive up the mountain culminated on a grassy, windy, treeless ledge that afforded a magnificent view. To the south, thick woods punctuated with small inland lakes, and in all other directions, Lake Superior stretching as far as the eye could see. One or two ore boats always dotted the surface, making their way to and from Duluth. You could get a better look at them through one of the large viewing telescopes, their metal handles worn shiny from the touch of many hands. Nearby, people gathered for photos in front of a large sign that informed us we were standing thirteen hundred feet above sea level, and seven hundred above the Lake. To me, it was somewhat surreal and unnerving to view it from this height, to see its true enormity that simply walking the shore couldn’t afford.  

There was of course a gift shop atop the mountain that necessitated a visit, and then it was the same shtick driving back down. There weren’t any guardrails; the only thing preventing an errant vehicle from careening off the sheer cliff face was the occasional rock wall or series of short timber posts, painted white and stuck in the ground by the Works Progress Administration way back in the 1930s. Every so often my dad would purposely veer towards them, giving us the serious willies, and when we got to the final and steepest grade leading back into the Harbor, he’d pump his foot dramatically, calling out, No brakes! Oh lord – I instantly tensed as I sat on that center console with nothing to prevent me from crashing through the windshield, but those brakes always started working again just in time. Good, clean family fun.

For supper, a stop at the A&W. We rarely ate at sit-down restaurants; my dad was more a fan of take-out. The A&W offered a hybrid approach, the waitress bringing the food out on trays that attached to the van’s partially open windows. There was root beer served in thick, scratched up glass mugs; fries with extra salt packets on the side; and my favorite, the Super Burger that gave the Big Mac serious competition. Being that it was a novelty to eat inside the van, this was great fun.

Back at the campground there was more playing catch, my dad sometimes joining in, though he mostly liked to sit and relax with a bottle of beer or a cup of coffee he poured from a thermos. I’d return to training the chipmunks and oh, the heady joy and satisfaction if I managed to coax one to take popcorn right from my hand.

Towards sunset it was time for one final must-see, a different kind of wildlife encounter. Joining a parade of vehicles, we headed to the town dump, driving up a dusty dirt road before parking so as to encircle the mound of trash. Then the wait, and it wasn’t long before dark figures began emerging from the surrounding woods – black bears. With no fence to keep them out, they’d come to root through the garbage in search of food, and in the dim light even some of the onlookers offered them snacks. That included us, tossing jumbo marshmallows out the van windows in the hopes of luring a bear in for a closer look, though the year one stood on its hind legs and stuck its head inside the open passenger window was a bit too close.

Before bed we enjoyed a bonfire at the campground, sitting on folding aluminum lawn chairs and roasting marshmallows and hot dogs held carefully over the coals, impaled on small tree branches my dad had whittled sharp on one end. Watching the flames dance, listening to the popping and hissing of the burning wood and the murmur of voices from adjoining campsites - it was a perfect end to an eventful day. After climbing into our sleeping bags, night sounds of the forest took over: the chirping of crickets and bats, the rustling of leaves on the birch trees, the waves gently lapping along the shore of Lake Fanny Hooe…

A new day arrived with the sound of tent zippers and car doors opening and closing, of people waking up and packing up. My dad had several more cups of coffee while we kids fished the last of the hotdogs and watermelon from the cooler, along with milk for the cereal - the same cereals we had at home, only while camping they came in adorable, miniature, single-serving boxes that you poured the milk right into. As with picking out a grab bag, eating supper in the van, or feeding the chipmunks, those miniature cereal boxes were seriously exciting to me, and that is the simple magic of childhood.

We didn’t always get around to visiting the Estivant Pines or the beaches along the big lake, and that was okay. We’d leave for home around noon, traveling back down US-41, the brakes momentarily failing again on our way down Quincy Hill, just shy of our destination. All told we’d been gone a little over a day, but it seemed far longer. As we recalibrated to “city” life, I’d recount the highlights of our trip to my mom. She’d listen intently the way she always did, surprised and pleased as ever with those small, decorative soaps I’d brought back for her. Placing them in her desk drawers, she said they served as sachets, amassing over the years.

Even though we’d largely seen and done the same things as the previous year and the year before that, that simple, annual overnight camping trip to Copper Harbor never lost its mystique. Not long before he died, I thanked my dad for faithfully taking us to Fort Wilkins every summer; it was all gratitude to him for the many happy, lasting childhood memories it created, though he really should have had those brakes looked at.