My Father Spoke Finglish at Work

Finnish Americans in Northeastern Ohio

Noreen Sippola Fairburn

• Editore: The Kent State University Press
• Anno: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781631010446
• Argomento: History
• Categoria: North American History

A regional view of Finnish immigration

In 1874 the first Finnish immigrants came to Northeast Ohio's Lake Erie port towns to work on the docks loading coal or unloading iron ore from ships sailing the Great Lakes or to work on the railroads. As with most immigrant groups, the Finns clustered in the same area, hoping to retain their language, customs, and culture, even in the New World.

The Finnish American Heritage Association of Ashtabula County was organized in 1995, and one of its first projects was the interviewing and taping of elderly Finnish Americans to obtain historical accounts of early immigrants. These first-person accounts were written as the narrator told them. Many of the first- and second-generation Finns were in their eighties or nineties at the time of their interviews, yet their recollections of times gone by were told with frankness and clarity. Photographs representative of these early years are also included in this volume.

Genealogists and those interested in immigration studies will find these first-person accounts valuable research tools and fascinating testimonies to the migrant experience.

Early-Twentieth-Century Arrivals,
1900–1909

The greatest influx of Finnish immigrants to northeast Ohio arrived just after the turn of the twentieth century. These years ushered in a building boom of temperance halls, churches, homes, and saunas.

To combat the evils of drunkenness and wages lost in the saloons, a temperance movement began in 1885. Men were encouraged to sign sobriety pledges and to attend meetings. As membership grew, temperance halls were constructed to house lending libraries, invite musical involvement and athletic competitions, and provide other means of socializing within the Finnish community. In Ashtabula Harbor, Sovinto Hall was dedicated on New Year’s Eve 1902. The hall measured 110 feet by 50 feet wide, with a height of 40 feet, all at a cost of fourteen thousand dollars. A tower was added that contained a four-faced clock, made in Finland, and required winding only three times a year. This illuminated clock could be seen at night by Great Lakes’ sailors. For nearly fifty years Sovinto was a thriving community and cultural center, but the World War II years and the decade following brought about the hall’s demise. Social needs were soon fulfilled by high schools’ drama, music, and sports departments, along with commercial entertainment, and the grand old structure was demolished in 1961.

Membership continued to thrive in the Lutheran churches once they were established and constructed. In 1881 a visiting minister arrived in Ashtabula, followed by several short-term ministers. Then the first permanent Lutheran minister, Abel Kivioja, arrived from Finland in 1891. By July 1893 the first Bethany Lutheran Church had been built and was dedicated with all services conducted in Finnish—the primary language used by the first and second generations in their homes.

Although there were no official signs, the Finns remained clustered in their own communities, such as “Finn Town” in Ashtabula Harbor and “Finn Hollow” in Fairport Harbor. Some Finnish men brought their carpentry skills from Finland or acquired them here. Soon they were building homes, retail specialty shops, businesses, and additional temperance and socialist meeting halls.

Public saunas were also built to accommodate those who didn’t have space for one in their backyard. These saunas were often viewed with a certain curiosity, if not disfavor, by the earlier Western Reserve settlers and other ethnic groups. They believed them to be places of torment and self-flagellation instead of the centuries-old innocuous custom that was considered a necessity to the Finnish people.

Matt Luoma

My mother was born in Ashtabula Harbor. Her name was Filda Heikkila, but she went by Matilda. My father, with my same name—Matt Luoma—came from Kaustinen in Finland. He said they stayed a week at Ellis Island to straighten up everything and find out who was backing them in the States. He must have come here in the early 1900s. He came to Ashtabula because other people from that section of Finland came here before. My father and mother met in Ashtabula, and they got married here, but I don’t know what date.

I’m the oldest, and I was born on October 15, 1908, when the folks were living on Oak Street. Then there was my brother, Ernest, and my sister, Eleanor. My father worked on the docks for a long time, and then he worked at the New York Central Railroad; he was a car repairman. Mother worked doing housework for the city manager and for one of the doctors, and other people.

I went to school in the Washington and Jackson buildings and then graduated from Harbor High School in 1927. Our church was Bethany Lutheran. The Finnish people used to have picnics at the “squirrel woods,” where Bethany is now. My father played trumpet and violin with the Humina Band. The Humina Band was a great thing. I used to go up there every Friday night when my father rehearsed, and they were good. I often wondered where all those old-timers learned to play like that. They didn’t have to take a backseat to anybody. Even us school kids would have to go and practice with the Humina Band. When we sang with them we had so many rests and notes, and a couple of the Finn guys would call out the rests, real loud, saying the numbers in Finnish. We used to sing “Down in the Valley,” and “I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad.” We’d sing that kind of song.

Growing up, we played baseball, basketball, and we were all golfers, but when my mother and father said to do something, we had to do it. Ernie and I used to like to play basketball Saturday mornings at Harbor High School. Many mornings we’d go there and forget we had chores to do, so that night we didn’t get to go to the Palace Theatre, either. Every Saturday we were supposed to do a certain job.

We had some of the best boxers and wrestlers come to compete at Sovinto Hall. Some of our Finn guys used to wrestle with the big shots. My brother was a good baseball player. My brother and Howard Joki and Kelly Altonen would make good outfielders in Cleveland right now.

We went to Haywood Beach every summer. That was like a resort for people, and every weekend people would gather there. My brother and I went, and my folks also, but we were with our gang, and they were with their gang. Modern Woodmen picnic grounds was a big place where old Camp Luther used to be—out on Lake Road East, along the lake. Later, we’d start swimming at Walnut Beach and we’d have trunks because everybody else did. We’d always have to wear a T-shirt, too. Coleman had coal yards, and in winter we’d ride with his sleigh. A couple guys had sleighs that would peddle their groceries and we’d ride with them. We went to dances at the halls, and to Geneva-on-the-Lake where the bigger-named bands came. They had three dance halls there. We used to go to the Torps hall when there was the Socialist movement, and we’d play basketball. One guy warned us about their kind, because he knew all of us kids went to church and Sunday school, and he told us, “Don’t listen to their stuff; they’re Communists.” We heard a lot of stuff, and learned what was really happening with them people.

I used to like to make that trip to Lampela’s store with my father on payday. When Lampela would get paid, he’d usually give the kids candy or an apple or something like that.

My first job was a caddy at the Ashtabula Country Club. Then I worked at the greenhouse. After high school graduation, I worked at the Hide and Leather uptown, and was lucky to get a job. A lot of Finns and Italians worked there. I think four Jews even worked in there. I once played on the same golf course as Jackie Gleason in Florida. He said we must be all ex-caddies, the way we played. Even the pros at the Country Club told us we could come play there anytime because we behaved better than their members did.

I worked with the CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps], and that was one of the best things we ever had. They should have that for the kids today. We worked in the forest cutting trees down; we built roads; and we even had our own stone quarry. People would think we had an easy life, but we had a worse inspection than they had in the army. We had a navy commander for our commanding officer, and we had an army lieutenant that was in charge of our food and stuff. Our forest rangers knew right away who were the city boys who never swung a hatchet or a shovel. Our commander would ask how many guys would take a steady KP job or be cooks, and we knew right away it would be the city guys. We were lucky that some guys were good cooks. Sandfield was our first-aid man, and many days we didn’t want to go work in the woods, so we’d tell him we want to be on sick call; he had four bunks in there so we had a place to sleep. We were always the first guys in the kitchen, and the cooks would fix us good food because we were sick.

Every morning our captain would come up, and we would have swept our barracks, and we would have to have everything cleaned up—the floor swept, and our shoes had to be polished, and then our clothes had to be hung a certain way. So everything was in order. It was just like the army, and all young kids today should have that. Our gang went once to California to work. My mother got thirty dollars a month, and I only got five. That kept my mother going, and she could make better use of it than me because we had our clothes, our eats, and a place to sleep. We built the park in Peninsula [Ohio], too, and we worked some on building Pymatuning Lake.

I was in the army during World War II. I was stationed in Panama, where we loaded ships with big cannons, airplanes, trucks, and everything for the invasion of Sicily. Some people thought the guys in the army had it easy. Well, we didn’t have to march like the infantry did, but we worked night and day just loading the ships up. Then, when the war was over in Europe, we went to Panama and loaded supplies on all those ships that were going to the Pacific. I liked Panama, and we had a good gang there.

I made sure my mother got a letter from me every month. One day I got a letter from Mr. Wenner, and our captain came to see me. He said that I must have gotten an important letter, so I let him read it when I got through, and he said, “That man must have been very well educated.” And I said, “He is superintendent of our school.” When I went home on furlough, about four or five of us guys went to see Wenner, and he thought that was great. He told us they were going to have a recognition evening at the church across from the high school, and he wanted us boys to be there. So we went and had dinner there, and Wenner was bragging that some of the boys had come to see him, and he told them to treat us well. We had a nice time there.

One New Year’s Eve, some of us guys had gone to the Iroquois Club and had a few beers. Then somebody got the bright idea of going to the six o’clock early service at Bethany. Otto Maki was the pastor then, and he said that last night we were drinking, and now we are in church. When he made a statement like that, he thought we were doing a good thing. We had always gone before, and we thought we were just as good as the rest of the people because we hadn’t done anything bad.

After the war I worked on the Pennsylvania ore docks. Matt Kujala [contractor] got a gang of about ten or twelve of us to help build the new Bethany church [1954-55] every Saturday morning. You should have seen when we put the roof on with big planks, and then we would be pushing all the shingles up there. We put a steel drain pipe in the basement, and Kujala said we got everything level and had done a good job. The women even made lunch for us in the basement of the old Bethany church.

Charlie Potti [undertaker] had an old office—it’s a bank now—and we used to play cards there. One night Jack Quirk drank a little too much and Charlie thought he’d play a trick on him. We carried Jack and put him in a coffin, and in the morning he wondered where in the hell he was. He sobered up after that and quit drinking. Then Jack and his wife went to Painesville and had a coffee shop, and he stayed sober.

Some of us retired guys used to meet for coffee at Lakeway Restaurant, and we called ourselves the “Finn Mafia.” Ray Koski made a sketch of us “charter members” one time, and I think that sketch is still hanging in the restaurant.

Matt married Helen Thurman on September 9, 1966, when he was fifty-eight. They had no children. Matt worked for the True Temper Corporation until he retired. His mother died in 1972, and Helen died in 1988. Matt spent his last days at the Austinburg Rehabilitation Center. He died there on June 23, 2001, at the age of ninety-two.

Martha Lilya

My father, Johan Lilya, came to the United States from Kiuruvesi, Finland, in the early 1900s. My mother, Ruusa Pranny, came from Laihia. She had finished her schooling in Finland and was eighteen when she came here. She said she was sick the entire time she was on the boat coming to America. She came to Ashtabula because her uncle, who was already there, sent her the fifteen dollars for her passage. My mother got her citizenship papers when she was a little older.

My mother and father met in Ashtabula and were married there in 1904. They first lived on what used to be called lower Oak Street [West Eighth Street]. They always rented a place, and never owned a home. My father was a tailor before he came to this country, so he worked in a tailor’s shop on Bridge Street with four or five other men.

I was the oldest of three. I was born in Ashtabula Harbor on February 14, 1906. My sister, Helen (Price), was born in September of 1907. Then Wayne, my brother, was born in 1910, and our father died when Wayne was just nine months old. My mother was only twenty-seven when she became a widow, so she had quite a load on her hands, but she made it. I have a photo of my father’s funeral carriage that was pulled by white horses. It was taken in front of the old Bethany Lutheran Church. And what I most treasure is the christening gown that all three of us children wore when we were baptized.

My mother’s mother, Maria, came to live with us after my father died. But she was here only a short time and got sick, and then she died in 1912. I remember when my grandmother used to comb my hair and then braid it. She really hurt my scalp, because she put the braids so tight, you know. I must have had a sensitive head. My mother didn’t go to work right away, so she must have had enough to sustain us for a while. After that, she had babysitters for us.

My mother used to go to different things at Sovinto Hall, like plays and concerts. And we used to listen to the Humina Band when they practiced behind Sovinto Hall. We went to the Harbor schools and to Bethany Lutheran Church. My mother used to take us to the Modern Woodmen picnic grounds and to the church picnics in old Bethany’s yard. We used to go to the movie theaters on Bridge Street, and I think the admission was five cents during the week and ten cents when we went on the weekends. We visited ice-cream parlors, too, and in winter we used to sled-ride a lot. Everybody seemed to have a sled, and we’d find a hill somewhere. I remember our mother taking us to Woodland Beach Park on Sundays, which was quite a thrill. We always celebrated holidays by visiting friends.

I remember the stores we went to. Mr. Salgen was a Finn who had a store called the “Racket Store.” He had a little bit of everything, like hardware and kitchen dishes. Hamalainen had a grocery store, and he had some foods stored in barrels. It was located just about where Chapman’s store is now. Then there was Lundi’s Meat Market, and I remember the Sippola Bakery. Jacob Sippola was a big, tall man, and there was that Alice Sippola; I remember her. Everybody who went into that building got good stuff.

My first job was babysitting and doing light housework during the summers. After I graduated from Harbor High School in 1924, I worked at the Electric Laundry as a bookkeeper. I answered the phone, too, and waited on people. I worked there for many years. During the Depression, my mother worked at the Electric Laundry, too, and she kept working there for years. Of course, neither one of us worked full time during the Depression. I remember there was a time when you couldn’t buy sugar, but my mother was able to buy hard candy, which she used in place of a sugar cube in her coffee.

I moved into a house on West Eighth Street in 1959. I lived in the upstairs apartment and rented the first floor out. Wayne worked in a war plant during World War II. He never married, so he came to live with me later on, until he died in 1989 when he was seventy-nine.

After the Electric Laundry burned down, I went to work as a clerk for the city auditor. I retired from there in 1970. I was a member of the Finlandia Foundation, and I was a member of Bethany all my life.

Martha lived alone until she was taken to the Ashtabula County Medical Center. She died there on February 2, 2003, at the age of ninety-seven. She was survived by two nephews, Robert and Richard Price.

Arvo Johannas Ritari

My father was Johan Rikart (Richard) Ritari, and he came here from Laihia, Finland, around 1900. He came to Conneaut because he heard there was work there at the docks. My mother’s name was Lempi Sundberg, and she came to Conneaut, too, from Ortisvala. My mother worked as a maid for a long time in one place. I don’t know how my folks met, but they were married in Conneaut.

By the time I was born, on July 27, 1905, we were living on Broad Street. I had four brothers, and Eino is the only one living. Then there was Lauri, Ilmari, and Rhiner. My sisters are Lillian and Helen—both living. We all went to the Dean Avenue School, and then to Conneaut High School. It was a good mile from our house to the high school.

We belonged to the old Finnish Lutheran Church on Broad Street. I went to Sunday School and the first day they wanted to know how I could read Finn. At that time I don’t think I knew a word of English, but I could read Finn as fast as I could talk. We had Sunday summer school in them days; used to be the minister’s wife was the teacher. I went to confirmation school there, too, and was confirmed when I was about fifteen.

I started going fishing with my father when I was seven. We’d get up at four in the morning and get back at noon. We caught pike and perch and gave most of them away. I made two cents a quart for picking berries. I made about a dollar a day because I picked so many quarts. Then, after six o’clock, I’d go down to the park and order an ice-cream cone. I really enjoyed that. I used to buy all my winter clothes with that money, too.

We didn’t celebrate any holidays because we were a poor family. They came here with empty pockets, and that’s the way they left. But my mother made Finnish foods like rice pudding, stew, and she baked all our bread and nisua. I don’t think I ate store-bought bread until I was maybe eighteen or nineteen years old. I used to have some family pictures, but we had a fire back in—I don’t know when—but that’s how my pictures were lost.

We made our own fun when we were growing up. O...