Anna Ahonen Narrator Lynn Laitala Interviewer December 9, 1975 LL

Anna Ahonen Narrator

Lynn Laitala Interviewer

December 9, 1975

LL: Lynn Laitala AA: Anna Ahonen

LL: Approximately when did your mother's parents come to the United States?

AA: In approximately 1870, because my mother was born in 1866, and assuming that grandmother was about twenty-two... She came to America when she was a very young girl, to Michigan with her family. So it would be earlier than 1870, maybe between 1860 and 1865.

LL: And her family went to Michigan first?

AA: Yes, that's where lot of the Finns came directly and that's where the Bachman family had settled.

LL: Where did your... Let's see, your father... Your grandfather and your grandmother came to this country separately?

AA: Yes.

LL: And they met probably in Michigan?

AA: They met in Michigan. I believe they did meet in Michigan. There were three of the Iljana brothers that came to America.

LL: That's your grandfather?

AA: Yes. And they separated. One went to San Francisco and got developed a fishing industry. And another one was out west and went to Alaska. And my grandfather settled in South Dakota in about 1880.

LL: What were living conditions like where they settled?

AA: They settled in South Dakota. The nearest town was Frederick. The larger town was Aberdeen. It was bare prairie without any wood or timber. They built a sod hut, first a one-room sod hut and the second sod hut by the time my mother was born had two rooms and a little lean- to for animals. My mother did boast of the fact that their sod hut had little windows with four panes. Most of the sod huts in that area still had oil paper for windows even during the winter blizzards. Later on they had storm windows, and I know this because my mother one winter laid

1 cotton batting between the storm window and the interior window in our Winton home to cut off the draft, and she said this is what we used to do in my first home in Dakota. They laid batting and then the batting was decorated with designs of different colored yarns. And that was one of the very small decorative things that were in the sod hut which was whitewashed white in the inside so that it was stark white.

LL: What crops did they raise then?

AA: They raised grains and mostly wheat.

LL: Any cattle?

AA: Yes, they raised a lot of cattle later on. Both for beef and for milk cows. In fact, my mother was a cowgirl who herded the cattle on the prairie.

LL: And they prospered and built larger homes?

AA: They prospered. They built a very, very nice frame home, with barns and a grainery. My grandfather was a very skilled blacksmith. And people from all around the country would come to him to have repairs and have articles made in his blacksmith shop

LL: Were they in the midst of a Finnish community?

AA: It was a Finnish settlement entirely. All the neighbors were Finnish. The community church was a Finnish Baptist church.

LL: Your grandparents were Baptists?

AA: Baptists. Very, very, very... practically fanatical Baptists. Some of the stories my mother would tell me about her mother indicated this. For example, she was given a pinafore with a ruffle on the shoulder and her mother would not permit her to wear it because that was the devil perched on her shoulder, which was vanity. And no cosmetics. They had very, very straight hair and plain clothes and heavy shoes.

LL: And their politics were as conservative as well?

AA: Yes. They were always Republican. My mother was a Republican up to the time of President Roosevelt's election.

LL: When was your mother born?

AA: My mother was born in 1888.

LL: How many siblings did she have?

AA: She was the third child. The first two children were brothers... were her... were boys, her older brothers. She was the first girl. Then the fourth child was a girl, Aunt Hilda. The fifth child was about four years younger than my mother, Ida, who died during the cholera epidemic when another girl, Aunt Anna, my aunt Anna, was born. And Ida was buried while my grandmother was in childbirth and the neighbors took charge of the dead body and the funeral. And there's one little story about my mother's doll. Would you like to hear of that?

LL: Sure.

AA: One of the uncles that - or one of the brothers - who had come to America at the same time my grandfather did had struck gold in Alaska and was very wealthy, and at a visit to his brother, my grandfather, had brought Amanda, who was the oldest girl at that time, a big doll that was the size of a two-year-old child. When the child, Ida, died, the neighbors used the clothing on this doll to dress Ida and buried her on the prairie, which very much disturbed my mother, who rejected the doll then without clothes. And also she went out on the prairie and buried the doll, which was never found.

LL: That's sad.

AA: Also my mother recalled that she had been a sickly child. More so than the other, or the little girl who had died from cholera. And one of the neighbors had said, in my mother's hearing, "It's too bad Amanda, who's so sickly, didn't die instead of Ida." And she remembered this all her life.

LL: What kind of school did your mother attend?

AA: My mother's schooling began first in various homes until a little schoolhouse was built. It was a one-room schoolhouse, typical one, with a potbellied stove and one teacher for all the grades. She had to walk a distance of about five miles to this school, which was conducted only during the winter months because all the children were needed in the spring for field work and in the fall for harvesting. So a school year was probably only about five months. And she once said she felt that the years she did attend had been an equivalent to about five years of schooling, although it was at that time considered an eighth grade education.

LL: Did her parents encourage her education or were they indifferent to it?

AA: I don't know. I don't think they were indifferent to it. And I don't think there was an opportunity for more education where she lived in the country. But when she did move to the town of Frederick to do domestic work, she somehow pursued something that was considered in our terms today practical nursing.

LL: When did she move into Frederick? How old was she when she started domestic work?

AA: She must have been about seventeen years old. Because the family that she worked for Pollacks, had a girl her age who was away at school, probably in Aberdeen.

LL: Before you told me something interesting about her attitude towards the girl away at school.

AA: Yes. She often told stories about Kitty Pollack. Kitty Pollack seemed to have been a very charming, pretty girl. And the fact that she was going away to school and then would come home for holidays or something very special... and preparations were made. I imagine a kind of celebration was held. Because in my mother's memories, Kitty Pollack's goings and comings from school were a very impressive thing. And the fact that she was able to go away to school was something that she admired or respected certainly very much.

LL: That's when she decided that her daughters should be educated?

AA: It seems to me that all our lives she instilled in us a value or a desire for higher education. And I think it probably originated from her admiration for Kitty Pollack.

LL: Then she returned home from domestic work, back to work on her parents farm?

AA: Well, when she... 1 think she did the domestic work in the winter months. And especially during harvest time she was back in the country cooking, first probably assisting and then cooking in the cook wagons that followed the threshers from farm to farm during harvesting.

LL: How did she meet your father?

AA: My father, who had come to the Iron Range from Finland...

LL: The Iron Range of Minnesota?

AA: Yes, the Iron Range in Minnesota, Ely, in fact, was interested in labor organization and was following threshing crews then trying to organize unions. And at this particular time he was working on the Iljana farm where he met my mother in the cookhouse.

LL: When had he come to the United States?

AA: He must have come to the United States before 1900. Five brothers came to avoid the draft.

LL: The Czar's army, the Russian army?

AA: The Russian army. I think a couple of the older ones came first and sent for the younger brothers, and three of the brothers took up farming in Minnesota. And my father, after marrying my mother, settled in Winton and they established a boarding house, probably on my mother's reputation as a good cook.

LL: What was your father's name?

AA: Matt Aho, but because there were so many Aho's, the name was changed to Matt Ahonen.

LL: What were his... As a labor organizer his labor politics were pretty far left?

AA: Yes, they were. In fact he was an IWW member, an agitator, and...

LL: And an atheist.

AA: And an atheist.

LL: How did your grandparents regard the marriage of their daughter to him?

AA: They disinherited her, and my mother and father had eloped and were married in Minneapolis where my mother had a schoolmate from Dakota, Mrs. Puorinen.

LL: What year was that?

AA: That was in 1913, June fifth, 1913. And from there they came back to... My father brought mother to Ely to meet his brothers.

LL: Then he already knew... He already lived in Ely and had kin there?

AA: Yes, he did.

LL: Were they working in the mines at that time?

AA: I think they worked...

LL: Or in the mills?

AA: In the mills. They were working in the mills and didn't like it. They were quite independent and homesteaded land.

LL: Also in Northern Minnesota?

AA: Yes.

LL: What was Winton's economic base at the time they established the boarding house?

AA: There were three mills operating, a saw mill, a planer mill, and I can't remember the name of the other mill. But there were three mills operating.

LL: Lumber mills.

AA: Yes, from the logging camps. The... Winton is on the shore of a lake where the lumber, where the logs, were tugged by steamboats in big booms to the mills. And there were three... There were spillways and trestles that ran trains which dumped the logs into Fall Lake which were then put into big booms that were tugged by the steamboats to the mills. LL: And most of the workers in the mills were immigrant bachelors?

AA: Immigrant... Yes, they were.

LL: So the boarding house business was a very good business at that time?

AA: It was very good. They were pretty prosperous. They made trips, for example, to Minneapolis, I think when I was about three years old. I've seen snapshots. My mother and father went back to visit Puorinen's, who were their witnesses to their marriage in the Court House in Minneapolis. And they also made one trip to Dakota back to see my mother's family.

LL: They patched up their differences eventually?

AA: Yes, after the first child, I was born.

LL: You were born when?

AA: In 1914. The sisters, my aunts, first came to visit me. Soon my grandmother and grandfather came to see the first grandchild they had.

LL: Did they rent out to Finns exclusively?

AA: It seemed to be that they were... Our roomers were all Finnish.

LL: You spoke Finnish in your home?

AA: Yes.

LL: What did your parents do to seek economic opportunity when the mills closed?

AA: They decided to leave Winton. They could not sell the house because most of the houses were for sale.

LL: When did the mills close, roughly? When were they leaving Winton? They lost their boarders about when?

AA: Yes, about 1920. About 1920. I think the idea was to go back to Dakota and help grandfather who also had plans to develop some land in Texas. And so we lived in Dakota for about a year and then left for Texas where my grandmother and grandfather and youngest uncle of mine had already gone to build and farm and raise some cotton and whatever. In Mercedes, Texas, which was near Galveston.

LL: Do you know how your grandfather heard of this?

AA: I think there was kind of a land boom at that time in Texas. Probably would you say, speculating, and there was a Finnish community there. LL: That they went down there to join?

AA: Yes, other neighbors from Dakota. It was a promise that there would be irrigation. But when we arrived there the irrigation canals had not been finished. I remember the first time our little farm had water. The irrigation ditches were full and the water ran and flooded the fields and it was very exciting. We were in water up to our knees. Of course, I was only six years old. But there were a lot of disappointments because they had not been able to begin any farming because there was a lack of water. And the water we were finally able to get from the well, but it was salty and could not be used. So in my grandfather's overland touring car, we would haul water from another canal in milk cans for home consumption.

LL: Why did your parents leave Texas to return to Winton?

AA: I believe that was because there wasn't that promise of a prosperous farm there and also my father... My father was ill and it was believed that the climate was affecting him and he was to return back to a more suitable climate. And once they returned...

LL: That's when they believed cold was healthy then - invigorating?

AA: Yes. And when they... And of course, they returned to Winton because the home had not been sold. But he did not recover. He was very, very ill. He was ill for two years and died then from a heart condition which was a rheumatic heart condition.

LL: What became of the Texas farm?

AA: My grandfather and grandmother returned to the Dakota farm because the oldest son had been left to operate it but he was a gambler and was losing the farm, was losing the farm for his gambling debts. And the other...

LL: And they knew that one was prosperous and the one in Texas was not?

AA: Yes. And Uncle Eddy remained in Texas for a number of years and then finally sold it to oil speculators. And it did turn out to be very, very wealthy oil land. And a few years later when Uncle Eddy returned to Texas, it was all filled with derricks.

LL: That's a famous "if only" story.

AA: Yes. (laughter) And meanwhile Uncle August was gambling and drinking away the wheat ranch. And I remember as a child when...

LL: Your grandparents had no thanks from their children.

AA: But they both lived there until they died. Except at one point I remember my mother having to sign away her part of the inheritance, I imagine, so that the debt could be paid. And part of that farm was lost. But the home part of it, the farmstead, still remained. Except of course, then through the drought years, the dust storms.

LL: In the thirties.

AA: In the thirties it was not productive.

LL: When they returned to Winton they again tried to support themselves by running a boarding house?

AA: No. They did not actually run a boarding house. There was no need for it. There was a boarding house - two boarding houses - very near to where ours had been. And my parents rented part of the house as for example a two or three room apartment, and we had roomers upstairs which had well, seven, five bedrooms on the second floor and two bedrooms on the third floor. But we would have as many as five or six roomers who were still the same lumberjacks or trappers. Two of them made their living on trapping and the others were lumberjacks who worked winters.

LL: By then it was small contract or "gyppo" logging?

AA: Yes.

LL: How old were the children when your father died?

AA: I was eight years old, or a little over seven. And Wilbert, the baby, was six months old. And there were four children, three girls and one boy.

LL: Two sisters between you?

AA: Yes.

LL: How did your mother work to support her family, to supplement the income from roomers?

AA: She took in laundry. The roomers paid for having their laundry done. And during the summers she took in laundry from the resorts that were beginning to operate. She did a lot of sewing. She was a seamstress. There were several families for whom she sewed, for the children. And later on when the resorts were established - or before that she cooked in the one hotel.

(End of Side One, Tape One) (Start of Side Two, Tape One)

AA:... and see, I was thirteen that summer and I also worked at summer resorts. At one time I was a cook and dietician at a boy's camp.

LL: That's when you were in college?

AA: That's when I was in college, earning seventy-five dollars a month. Before that we earned thirty dollars a month at the Canadian Border Lodge, doing everything from laundry to cabin cleaning and waitress work, dishwashing and...

LL: What kind of schooling did you have in Winton?

AA: We had a grade school up to eight grades until the year I was in the seventh grade. The eighth grade was closed and we were bused to Ely for eighth grade. Then several years later, it was only conducted through the sixth grade and finally it closed because of the lack of students. It was consolidated with the Ely public schools.

LL: How were you taught English? You didn't know English when you went to school?

AA: I didn't know a word of English when I went to school. My father was very, very strict about his children learning to read and write Finnish. Very shortly after I started in the first grade... I didn't enter the kindergarten because I was almost eight years old.

LL: That was because you had been in Texas?

AA: Yes, because in Texas children were not permitted to go to school until they were seven because of the heat. And I missed... I had been in the Dakota school for a few months, in the same little school that my mother had finished her education in, which was a little building of eight grades. We sat two in a seat. And I didn't know any English there. But the teacher was Finnish. In Winton however, we didn't have any Finnish teachers. So shortly after school began, I learned to say "I tell Sovie, Sovie tell you," because Sovie could speak English because she had an older brother who had already been in school. And then it... I learned to read before I learned to speak.

LL: With pictures and...

AA: Yes.

LL: Picture books and words under the pictures?

AA: I really don't know how it developed. Yes, it just...

LL: But they were teaching you...

AA: Only English.

LL: Only English. And then you finally learned it?

AA: Yes.

LL: By the time you were in the second grade you could speak English?

AA: Of course, my mother would help us with our reading because she spoke and read English. My father had not permitted this when he was living.

LL: He didn't want her to speak to you in English?

AA: No. He was very strict of our learning good basic Finnish. And I guess I did, because I still have it.

LL: Was there any feeling among others... Your father obviously was very concerned about maintaining the Finnish culture, Finnish traditions among his children. Did any Finns feel that their children were being deprived of their Finnish heritage in the public educational system, in the public schools? Was there any attempt to introduce any of this? To either keep their children out of school, or did they do something with the Finnish culture in the schools?

AA: I don't think there was. We were very... The parents were very proud to have a good school. They were very conscientiously becoming Americanized, I guess. There was the attitude of come hell or high water, the teacher was right. And the teacher was always right. The parents took great pride in their children's schoolwork and student's achievements. And we were very obedient. The Finnish children actually excelled. They were not roughnecks. They caused no problems.

LL: The teachers commented on this?

AA: Very often. And years later I heard it as an adult. The discipline problems were non-Finns.

LL: Somebody was motivating their kids to learn then - the Finns.

AA: But of course the Finns back in Finland had a high regard for education. And they all came to America already educated, although they were educated in their Finnish schools.

LL: So the literacy rate was already high?

AA: Yes. But my mother did mention once that if my father had lived, we would not have gone on to higher education because he felt that we were being trained to accept capitalism and militarism and that he would not accept that. That's all the American schools stood for, was to...

LL: But she thought it was a means of social mobility.

AA: Yes, but...

LL: And she was happy that you were brought into the American system?

AA: Yes.

LL: Did it make you feel ambivalent? You must have been aware? AA: I didn't feel ambivalent. I felt that well, I enjoyed school. And I was a good student. And of course I was reinforced and accepted school and enjoyed it.

LL: I understand the schools were of a very good quality because of the money from the mines going into the Ely school system.

AA: Yes. Yes, they were. We had a swimming pool. We were transported to Ely from the fifth grade level for swimming and for library, for music lessons.

LL: Even though you feel that most Finnish parents were quite eager to have their children educated into the American system, they didn't deny their own cultural heritage at home?

AA: No. We had the hall, which was called the Finn Hall, where the weekly programs were held. Most of them in Finnish and directed by Finnish people.

LL: This was in Winton?

AA: In Winton. It was a socialist hall. Now I forgot what I was going to say. And we were taught to sing Finnish songs, Finnish folk dances, and we'd perform at programs. And they were very, very enjoyable. We always looked forward to them. The highlight of the week was this weekly hall activity mostly on a Sunday night because that's when the men were home from the camps and from work. And it was basically a Finnish orientation.

LL: Were there any mutual aid associations among the Finns? What happened if a family met with disaster?

AA: One of the older women at the nursing home just recently told me about the socials that were held at the hall. One had been held for our benefit after my father died. They were very often basket socials where the women prepared a lunch for the baskets and the men bid on them. And dances were held and the admission was used for charitable purposes or the admissions from programs, plays were donated to some needy family.

LL: Do you think that the activities at Finn Hall were a real conscientious effort to perpetuate Finnish culture or because they were enjoyable activities and language and the programs were familiar to them, and enjoyable?

AA: I think they were enjoyable. I wasn't very conscious of the perpetuation of Finnish culture.

LL: They weren't saying...

AA: No, not at all.

LL:... "Remember your heroic heritage?"

AA: No. LL: About what percentage of Winton's population was Finnish in 1920's, roughly?

AA: About half.

LL: What other nationalities were there?

AA: There were Norwegians and Swedes. There were a few English, Scotch...

LL: Did children of different nationalities play together?

AA: They played together in the schoolyard. But in our own block, for instance... Well, we played in other neighborhood groups, Finns and mixed.

LL: Did Finnish children feel that children of other nationalities held them in lower esteem?

AA: We were often made fun of. I had that sense. The non-Finns whom I knew lived on what was called the Company side of our village and we lived on the township side. And they were... They were better dressed. They lived in nicer homes. They had automobiles.

LL: Do you think maybe mainly because they were... There were …

AA: They were more prosperous? I don't know. I don't know if ...

LL: They spoke English and were in better positions or...

AA: They were businessmen. Even the depot agent had status.

LL: And the Finns largely were unskilled workers or skilled workers?

AA: Yes. They were not businessmen. They were not... They did not take leadership roles in the community and of course, they were non- English speaking. They were mainly non-speaking...

LL: Non-English...

AA: Non-English speaking. I think that was the most important thing. And of course, they were more Americanized for some reason or other. I know that among...

LL: You mean the non-Finns?

AA: The non-Finns, yes. I know that among the Finns, we were more Americanized because my mother had been in domestic work in a non- Finnish family. For example, during class picnics and parties, our lunch boxes always had an ironed linen napkin, which was not typical.

LL: And it gave you some cla.ss and status.

AA: It did.

LL: Among Finns.

AA: Yes.

LL: That's a kind of social mobility right there.

AA: And the foods that we had in our lunchboxes were quite different, especially when we went on to the Ely schools where the Slovenians had garlic sausages and other foods that were very unlike what Americans ate. And they felt stigmatized because of the garlic breath and so forth.

LL: You came into contact with Slovenians. You didn't in Winton?

AA: No.

LL: But when you went to Ely you did? Did you in the social pecking order... Did the Finns look down on the Slovenians, a step below them? Were they a little less Americanized than the Finns were?

AA: No, not really, because it was Catholic. The Finns were split into two Lutheran churches, the Socialist Hall and cooperative movement, which to some people was a religion in itself. The Slovenians were in businesses.

LL: They made a solid front?

AA: They were united, solid front. When Finns would run for political offices, the Finns themselves couldn't cooperate to elect a Finn. And they just weren't that business-minded. They weren't that motivated.

LL: So they didn't have any power in the community then?

AA: They had very little power in the community.

LL: What were... What kind of recreational games did you have in your childhood?

AA: We had our neighborhood "kick the can", "run my good sheep run", circle games.

LL: What were the origins of these games? Were they Finnish games or American games=o r just kids' games?

AA: I don't know. They were just kids' games. Then of course, in. the wintertime we had our Finn Hall hill for sliding and skiing and we had the river and the lake for skating. The boys kept the rink open and there was always a bonfire, beautiful big bonfire, on the shore. We'd put our skates on sitting on the steps of the washhouses. The river had three washhouses, which were buildings with a hole on the floor where the water was pulled up with buckets. They had a long bridge so that the washhouse stood in deeper water on pilings. And there were the washtubs, a little stove with a boiler and the washboards for scrubbing. And the clothes were rinsed off this kind of dock which had steps at the end and the clothes were swished in the lake and...

LL: This was for people who...

AA: They were privately owned. One was owned by Laitinen's building which had renters. The other one was owned by the "Poikatallo", which was a bachelor's boarding, rooming house. And one was owned by the family who lived near the shore, the Reko's. But we were able to use Reko's. Except we did carry our water up from the lake, the soft water for laundry. We had a well right at the steps from the kitchen door, but it had hard water.

LL: What did you do in the wintertime for water?

AA: We pulled water from the lake from a hole in the ice. The first one down there would chop the ice off and all day there was traffic down to the hole in the ice and people pulled up water in tubs or wash boilers on a sled.

LL: And you heated them?

AA: And heated them on the stove.

LL: And had special out buildings, sheds for washing?

AA: In the wintertime we did our washing in the kitchen. The washtubs... Two washtubs on a washtub stand with a wringer were set up in the kitchen. And the water was heated in a copper boiler on the wood stove. The washing was most often hung outside.

LL: And you'd knock off the ice and bring it inside and...

AA: Sometimes. Whatever happens... Does it dehydrate, or the ice finally disappears and the clothes are partially frozen and brought in. Sometimes we would bring them in stiff, standing up... underwear that my mother washed for the roomers. (laughter) They looked like ghosts sitting around our kitchen. (laughter) But there were very, very... I don't know of any homes that had basements. The homes were built on...

LL: It must have been a ghastly job in the wintertime, sitting around in puddles of water.

AA: It doesn't seem that there were puddles, very little.

LL: It wasn't that bad then.

AA: No.

LL: The melting ghosts...

AA: No. The water just evaporated, dehydrated with the ice. They were partially dry. Sometimes they were dry, even in freezing weather. Try it. For recreation... Well later...

LL: That was a little bit of a sidetrack. (laughter)

AA: We were sitting on the steps of these washhouses, putting skates on and the boys would set up logs around the bonfires. We had miles to skate.

LL: This was the river?

AA: This was the river. We'd skate through the river onto the lake and the lake was seven miles long. Sometimes we'd skate to the end of the lake. Fantastic! That was the courting season in our village.

LL: Of course, that was in the thirties. That was the drought. You didn't have much snow.

AA: We didn't have much snow. One winter the... we had a thaw. I think we had a January thaw. Then it froze over and it was clear ice over the earlier, first ice. And we skated to the end of the lake crossed Four Mile Portage and skated on Basswood to the ranger cabin, which was about twenty miles.

LL: This is about the 1930's, now.

AA: This was before I graduated from high school, which was in 1933. And then we snowshoed and skied. We did cross-country skiing, practically every weekend, or hiking. One time two of my friends and I skied to King's Point, which is on the Canandian side of Basswood Lake, which would be at least thirty miles away. And a storm came up and we were returned to Winton by dog team, which was very exciting. Another time we were crossing Four Mile Portage and had gotten into slush, so our skis weren't sliding and our going was slow. When it got dark, we were left miles from our destination, and I recall from the summer that there was a hayfield and a haystack off the side of Four Mile Portage and we found it and on New Year's Eve dug ourselves into this haystack to stay for the night.

LL: Was it... these outdoor activities were familiar to the Finnish immigrants who were used to boating and skiing in the Old Country. Were the children who did these things mainly Finns or did other children...

AA: I only know of Finns and one Indian boy and one of his friends who were very active in the woods. I was particularly active because I enjoyed it and my... So that my companions were the boys of my own age who also did this. And...

LL: Besides you and your sisters, was it common for girls to go out in the woods?

AA: No. And my sisters... My sister Elsa never did. My sister Esther began when she had a friend on Basswood. She didn't do it as a child as I had done.

LL: Wasn't it considered risqué for you to go out with these boys in the woods?

AA: No. I was... 1 guess I was a tomboy and it was accepted. I'd grown up with - especially - with two of these boys who I had thought were relatives until I was an adult. They were not my cousins after all. But I was skilled at shooting and skiing and so the boys accepted me.

LL: What did other girls do who weren't in the woods?

AA: My sister Esther played with paper dolls for years and years and years with her friends. And they'd cut out paper dolls from catalogs. They had families and families. (laughter) And relatives and relatives from both the Montgomery and the Sears catalogs. And my sister Elsa wasn't very active. She wasn't athletic at all. She and her friends would read. We knew the Delinator. That was a magazine. And I can't remember now what some of the others were. The Journal, Ladies Home Journal.

LL: What... Were girls expected to do things like (unclear).

AA: No. We didn't. I did sew however. In fact when I was in the eighth grade I made a coat, and made my clothes.

LL: With a sewing machine?

AA: Yes. We had a treadle sewing machine. I'll never forget the coat I made. It was a polo coat. I had found this big overcoat in our attic which had been left by some roomer. It was grey, so I dyed it brown and I used my mother's wash boiler to dye it. Although I'd rinsed out the wash boiler, her next wash turned brown. She didn't compliment me on my polo coat and I never did hear the end of the ruination of that wash boiler. (laughter)

LL: Well did your polo coat turn out well enough so that you...

AA: I wore it for many years.

LL: No one made fun of it? It wasn't funny looking?

AA: No, it wasn't, and then my mother did relent and she knitted me orange, tan and brown mittens to match, and... 1 can't remember what we wore on our heads.

LL: Not babuska scarves?

AA: No.

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AA: No, they didn't come in until I was a teenager.

LL: They were an old-country tradition. The old ladies used to wear them.

AA: The old ladies did wear their scarves, yes.

LL: But it wasn't fashionable for younger...

AA: No. We didn't until I must have been in high school when we began to wear scarves. If it was tied over the chin you were not looking for a boyfriend... No, you were looking for a boyfriend. If it was tied under the chin, you already had one.

LL: Did you really do it?

AA: Yes. (laughter) I don't think I did but...

LL: You didn't have a choice. You were advertising one way or the other. (laughter) I suppose it was more demure to wear it under the chin even if you didn't have a boyfriend.

AA: On my face it was more becoming if it was not tied way under my chin. (laughter)

LL: Did your family keep in touch with your mother's family?

AA: My aunt Anna had married a Finn, a Hakkala, and lived oh, about fifty miles away. They were childless, so when my mother was widowed and worked, Aunt Anna often took care of my brother Wilbert, except the year that I was ten, he was home with me. I took care of Wilbert. I know that because my mother was hospitalized that summer and I managed with him while my sisters Elsa and Esther were at Aunt Anna's. And they went there every summer until I guess they were old enough to work at the summer resorts. And my father's brothers lived only thirty, forty miles away. Which however seemed a long distance, and when we did see each other in the earlier years, they would come by train. Then in later years, the older boys had cars and they would bring my uncle.

LL: You kept in touch with them after your father died?

AA: Yes. And they were very helpful to us. We always got big packages of turkeys and chickens and pork and one time Uncle David gave us a cow.

LL: They were successful then in subsistence agriculture, even though they were so far north in Minnesota?

AA: Yes. Uncle David was very, very successful. He had dairy cattle and he was very progressive. He would promote in, the 1920's, alfalfa, and was very up to date with whatever the ag programs were recommending.

LL: What was life like in the boarding house?

AA: The boarding house...

LL: That you were living in.

AA: ... as a child.

LL: As a child.

AA: My mother always had help.

LL: New immigrants?

AA: Yes. In fact, some of the help were given fares by my father. Some of them had been peasants on my father's land in Finland.

LL: Your father's family had been landowners?

AA: Landowners. In fact, not very long ago I met a woman in a nursing home who told me she was the first woman - first person - to have seen me because she was at my birth. She was a maid in our household at that time when I was born.

LL: And she was one of the domestics that your father had sent for?

AA: Yes. There were two or three servants, and my mother then would take charge of the cooking. There was a dining room and a sitting room. As I remember it, it only had benches around the walls.

LL: The sitting room?

AA: Yes.

LL: Did they sit in there?

AA: They would sit in there and they would argue and debate. My father was a terrific person for debating.

LL: Political questions?

AA: Political questions.

LL: Were most of the boarders then probably share his politics?

AA: I think so. Then outside of the house were the washhouses where there was a long table with wash basins, and a kind of a sewer that just ran into the alley ditch. And behind that was a privy.

LL: That was used winter and summer?

AA: Winter and summer, a big privy. It had four holes, one small hole with a little box on which you could climb up.

LL: For children?

AA: For children. But during the winter as children used a chamber pail which was then emptied into the privy.

LL: Did... Then once a week you'd use the public sauna?

AA: The public sauna in those days was open every night. Then it was open three nights a week and later on as I remember it was open two nights a week. It was a magnificent public sauna with a great big ladies side with a dressing room and a washroom and a steamroom. And the same with the men's side. And the men'5 side also had a big dressing room upstairs. Then there were private baths for families. And the private baths had a dressing room and a steam room with the lava, the benches for steam, a shower and a bathtub.

LL: Was it expensive to go to the public sauna?

AA: It wasn't. I think it was forty cents a family, the last I remember, and ten cents for the public sauna. But before it closed I think it rose to twenty-five cents. But it was the event of the week. And it was more a social thing than even the need for cleansing. I remember washing back after back after back and listening to the ladies talk.

LL: It was segregated by sex.

AA: Yes.

LL: Except for the families?

AA: Yes, except for the family units. And all the week's events were reviewed and discussed, and before a dance you'd time it so that your hair would dry, and it was invigorating and it was... It really was a social thing.

LL: Back to the boarding house. When your father was alive, did they eat with you?

AA: No. There was a big boarding house table and as I remember, we had a table in the kitchen where we ate.

LL: Then after he died, they didn't eat in the house?

AA: No. This ended when we went to Texas. And when we returned we only had the roomers, without meals, because the boarding houses were still... Two other boarding houses were still operating.

LL: And serving food.

AA: Serving food, and our roomers ate at those boarding houses until the boarding houses ended. Then we had one bachelor, in fact a relative, who had been in the house from the very beginning; came back when we returned from Texas and lived there as long as he was able to

19 before he went into a nursing home. He had bachelor quarters, two rooms with one room as a kitchen - living room with a cook stove and cupboards and table.

LL: He was actually related to you and was almost part of the family then?

AA: He was my father's first cousin. Would he have been my second cousin?

LL: First cousin once removed?

AA: I don't know. But he was very, very dear to us and certainly loved us. He had never married and never even had a... 1 guess he had had a sweetheart in Finland he left there.

LL: The sex ratio was such that most Finnish bachelors couldn't find Finnish wives?

AA: No. That's true. There were a lot of bachelors left in Winton after the mills closed and some of them lived together and a lot of them bached alone. And some of them lived at the lake. There were cabins that were used year around, lob cabins that were meant to be homes.

LL: Who was your longest term boarder or roomer? Were there other roomers after the mills closed? Did they stay for years too?

AA: Yes. They stayed as long as they lived in Winton. Frank Maki, or Hill; he changed his name; lived in town winters but he lived most of the summers at the lake until he built a log cabin. Then he lived there summer and winter. But he still maintained a room in our house for like three dollars a month or five dollars a month is all the rent that those roomers were charged.

LL: They seemed to prefer to go out and live in the woods than stay in town?

AA: Yes. One of our... Two of our boarders were trappers, so they lived in town periodically. And some of them worked at summer resorts during the summers.

LL: Guiding and...

AA: Yes, so although they maintained or kept their rooms in our house even though they didn't live there that permanently... But we cleaned their rooms and my mother washed their bedding and they paid extra for their other laundry.

LL: Did you feel that it was pretty much a family atmosphere in the boarding house while these men... Were these men more of an extended family than strangers? Did you feel closer to some than others?

AA: I think so. But they all accepted us very nicely. And my father was very strict with us children. We could not leave the yard. I remember sometimes racing with them and my father built a ski slide and someone would stand by instructing us. And when my father died

20 and Wilbert, the only boy, remained, my mother let... 1 remember her letting his hair grow a little longer because it was curly. And one of the boarders one day took him to a barbershop. He had a haircut. And he brought him back with a boy's haircut, overalls and shoes.

LL: Taking his... taking his male socialization in hand.

AA: Yes.

LL: How did you decide to go to college?

AA: Well, we had two years of free junior college in Ely. And after I graduated from the Ely Junior College, there were no job opportunities in Ely. Most of the girls I knew were going to the Cities to do domestic work in the Jewish families. And I thought I would also go into Minneapolis and earn a living. But my school was major, but also I did have to earn a living at the same time. Fortunately, these were the years when they had the NYA program, the National Youth Association, where we worked within the school. I was a teaching... 1 was an assistant one year to a related arts teacher and one year to a teacher in home economics education. And by living in a small room with cooking facilities, living was not very expensive and I had skill in sewing, so I sewed clothes. Although my first wardrobe was a disaster. When my mother's friends knew I was going away to school, they donated their clothes knowing I could remake them. And of course they gave me some lovely things, but when I got to the University campus, my clothes were not at all fitting. They were made from satins and silks! (laughter) And even my shoes were high heeled and...

LL: And the other girls were dressed more casually?

AA: In saddle shoes, kind of, saddle shoes and skirts and sweaters. And it was a long time before I got a sweater. I made a skirt.

LL: How did you decide to go to the main campus of the University of Minnesota?

AA: I'd always wanted to be an architect. And I had enjoyed plane and solid geometry and algebra and trigonometry, and the dean of the college thought I would be able to do the work, to become an architect. And I was a favorite of my art teacher, who believed that I was very artistic.

LL: So you went to the big school?

AA: So I went to the University of Minnesota to register for architecture. But the advisor that I had sent me to - put me into a course in related art. Related art was to apply to all phases of art in living, interior design, crafts, decorating, home decorating and so forth.

LL: Why do you feel your advisor did that?

AA: I don't know. At that time her argument was that there were no jobs for architects, but in related art there was a greater opportunity for employment. But even the majors who graduated in related art had only jobs selling hats. (laughter) So...

LL: Did you suspect at the time or did you suspect later that you were channeled into related arts because you were a woman and architects were men as opposed to women?

AA: Not until later years did that occur to me. So I got my degree, a B.A., in related art, but there were no job opportunities, so I stayed on one more year for a degree, a B.S. in home economics education, taking my education credits so I could teach home economics and related art.

LL: Did you feel when you were at the University... Did you sense discrimination, a sense of...

AA: Inferiority?

LL: Inferiority, yes. You mentioned your wardrobe when you went there that was not fitting.

AA: And I really should have known better. I should have looked at magazines. Except we didn't subscribe to any magazines. I just didn't know. I was a girl from a small hick town, as hick a town as there could be. (laughter)

LL: That's as north as you can get in Minnesota.

AA: At the absolute end of the railroad. The train has to back out of Winton. (laughter) And there's nothing but wilderness beyond it, wilderness which you cannot even to this day travel except by canoe or snowmobile.

LL: Did you feel inferiority because you felt you were an immigrant child? Was it an ethnic feeling or was it poverty or mixed?

AA: I haven't thought very much about it until recently. And I do think it was a combination of poverty and ethnicity. I do recall though that when I was in high school, I did a very, very good dramatic reading for a drama contest, dramatic reading contest. And the dean and my other teachers felt that I had done far better than the student that that... Now what department did she have? Well, she was the judge for the dramatic readers. But I had done better than the student she chose. And the student she chose was a McCarthy, the daughter of the doctor in town. And I did then really feel it was discrimination. And of course, I had my Finnish accent.

LL: Did you have a feeling that the non-immigrant students... Did there seem to be a lot of immigrants beginning college at the university at that time?

AA: I only knew of two other Finnish students at the university.

LL: Did it seem that there were other students that had some kind of brogue or accent?

AA: No.

LL: It seemed like everyone else knew English and spoke it, standard American English? Did you suspect that they knew things that you weren't aware of?

AA: Absolutely. When I started my courses in related art we talked about Duncan Phyfe, Chippendale...

LL: What's Duncan Phyfe?

AA: The Chippendale chairs and so forth. Up to that time to me a chair was a chair. And I had only seen the three-rung back chairs. So everything was absolutely new and strange.

LL: And now those three-rung chairs are antiques and are priced as antiques in their own right.

AA: And I was very, very ashamed of our plain oak furniture and our very plain, sparsely furnished home.

LL: With real oak furniture.

AA: But I was absolutely ignorant. I had not been out of Ely or Winton.

LL: And the other students seemed to have sophistication already.

AA: Absolutely. Just from walking in department stores alone is an education.

LL: So even if they weren't substantially better off economically, they had been socialized into a broader education in popular culture.

AA: Yes. I was wide-eyed with wonder. I had a room called the fireplace room where girls would meet during lunch, the girls who brought lunch. And one time I was invited to join the group in the fireplace room for my lunch, and I didn't have lunchmeat. In fact, I lived basically on oatmeal. And this time I sliced up my cold oatmeal and put it between two slices of bread to make it look like a salmon sandwich, and I ate it in the fireplace room. (laughter) But most of the time then later, I would eat my lunch sitting in the toilet in the girl's restroom. I was very embarrassed. And I always hid it. I never had carried it in a nice bag. I didn't have a nice bag.

LL: Did you find any other girls that were as poor or came from as remote an area as you did to commiserate with?

AA: No. I did have one friend that came from a farming community. But she had food. Her parents would bring her boxes of potatoes, rutabagas, beets, and meat and chickens and eggs.

LL: She was probably embarrassed by her food though, too. (laughter)

AA: No. I was very culturally deprived.

LL: Where did you go when you graduated from the University? Where did you go to work?

AA: I took the first job that was offered me because I wanted to be near home, and I had a boyfriend at home. My boyfriend had also graduated from the University of Minnesota but he didn't get a teaching position. So he was living in Ely and I got a job at a beautiful, new St. Louis County Consolidated High School in Embarrass.

LL: And that was a Finnish community?

AA: It was absolutely a Finnish community.

LL: When you returned to that rural agricultural...

AA: Yes, and a very, very economically deprived area.

LL: So then you returned from college having felt socially deprived to the very cultured high class in the Embarass Finnish farming community.

AA: And absolutely, and I fit in so well and did delightful things with these girls. We had tea and dinners, and instead of buying new fabrics, we remodeled coats and suits and clothes. I collected nice woolen things for the girls to remake. We made hats. We had style shows.

LL: You felt it was very important for them to learn the things that had embarrassed you?

AA: And by now I had worked on my wardrobe so I had some very nice clothes, and I let the girls borrow them. One time when a girl was part of a winter frolic, I imagine a queen's attendant or something, I gave her my pretty velvet dress to wear, which she ruined however, but she had a very, very happy time.

LL: Were you comfortable returning to a Finnish community after being at the university?

AA: Yes, I was. And we had a very good... 1 can't remember what it was called - a department in art - which also supplied the home economics department with materials that had been made by the WPA project. So we had beautiful examples of patchwork, of draperies, of table linens, placemats, dishes, and silverware, goblets, besides other art materials for crafts.

LL: The Depression was, as far as you were concerned, a boom?

AA: It was for our St. Louis County schools.

LL: And for the art field?

AA: Yes. In fact at the University of Minnesota...

(End of Side One, Tape Two) (Start of Side Two, Tape Two)

AA:... I had an assistantship with a Barbara Weisman who had been the director of the WPA project in Milwaukee under President Roosevelt. And she was a marvelous person.

LL: When you were... Let's see, you graduated from high school in '32?

AA: I graduated from high school in '33 and I missed one year of school because of a broken leg and so I... so that was two years of junior college. Then I had two years at the university plus the year that I added for my...

LL: Education.

AA: For education, a B.S. degree.

LL: When did you graduate from the university?

AA: In '39, with a B.A. and a B.S.

LL: How long did you work before you were married?

AA: I taught two years. And before I finished my second year of teaching, I had been asked to be a home management supervisor for northern St. Louis County which I accepted as a job.

LL: This was a Depression-related job.

AA: Yes, it was.