(gentle jaunty music) - [Narrator] Some people remember Viola Turpeinen's music from well-worn records played over and over.

Others remember her charismatic, energetic performances, and dances which were always packed.

Still others tell stories of Viola visiting their family's home or sharing a sauna.

One thing is certain.

Many, many people remember Viola Turpeinen, Finnish America's virtuoso accordionist.

- Also, I think she brought a sense of glamour and allure with her.

She came from New York, we were out in the country, and it was the days before television, and I think she brought a certain glamour.

She was a very warm person, very friendly.

Viola Turpeinen was born in 1909 in Champion, Michigan.

from Michigan's upper peninsula to New York City.

She recorded and toured nationally, as well as internationally.

- Well, I think she provided a mythic figure for the immigrant community.

- [Narrator] On this very special edition of "Album," we'll tell the story of Viola Turpeinen and her partner on stage and off, William Syrjala.

Stay tuned as we remember a legend.

(gentle jaunty music) (gentle pensive music) (gentle pensive music continues) (gentle pensive music continues) (gentle pensive music continues) (gentle pensive music continues) (gentle pensive music continues) (cheerful polka music) (crowd applauds) In the summer of 1994, some 36 years after her death, Viola Turpeinen was inducted into Ironworld USA's Polka Hall of Fame.

- Ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor to present the ninth inductee into the Ironworld USA Polka Hall of Fame, the Finnish American queen of the accordion, the late Viola Turpeinen.

(crowd applauds) - [Narrator] Many of the people in this crowd probably attended at least one of Viola's dances.

The well-known performer toured this region regularly for four decades, beginning in the 1920s.

Bobby Aro, who received a lifetime achievement award during the same ceremony, had this to say about Viola.

- And then Viola Turpeinen, I knew her back in the old days, and she was fantastic, and she, I think, was probably the only person to come up on the range on a Tuesday or Thursday or a Sunday, and she'd pack 'em in.

(lively polka music) (lively polka music continues) - [Narrator] As the Chmielewski Funtime Band takes the stage and dancers start to bob and spin around the floor, thoughts turn to an earlier time, when it was Viola's accordion which made people dance.

(lively polka music) (performers singing faintly) (gentle polka music) She inherited a love of music from her parents, who encouraged her to learn to play the piano accordion.

By the time she was a teenager, Viola was playing for crowds at the local Finnish and Italian halls.

In 1925, when she was 16 years old, Viola was discovered by concert promoter John Rosendahl.

He recognized Viola as a virtuoso accordionist who also had that elusive star quality.

They started by touring in the Duluth Superior area, and eventually entertained throughout the Western Great Lakes.

- My dad used to be a manager of a Finn hall in Duluth here.

It used to be located on 6th Avenue East, just below 4th Street, and she appeared there, and I guess I must have been about six, seven years old, probably when the first time that she appeared there.

- [Narrator] In 1927, Viola and John moved to New York City, where they found regular work in the city's many Finnish halls.

Their recording career began the very next year.

(cheerful polka music) From 1928 to 1931, they recorded four duets for Columbia Records and nine for Victor Records.

Viola also soloed in five more recordings for Victor.

- She did a lot of recording toward the end of 1920 and in the early '30s, and most Finnish American homes had Turpeinen music on their 78 RPM windup phonographs, I'm sure, so, yes, a lot of us grew up with that music.

- [Alyce] I think every Finnish family had recordings of Viola if they had a phonograph to play them on.

- She was also the first woman accordionist in this country in 1925 to record ethnic and classical music.

Not only was Viola a dance hall accordionist who played dance music, ethnic Scandinavian dance music, but she was a classical accordionist.

She studied under Pietro Deiro, who was the godfather of the piano accordion in this country.

- [Narrator] In 1929, Turpeinen and Rosendahl toured Finland, drawing a crowd of 2,300 people to a concert in Helsinki.

Although Viola and John were now international stars, they maintained their connections with Midwestern Finnish communities through regular tours.

- Small farming communities that had a Finn hall probably looked on Viola's performance as a highlight of the year.

Many of 'em had their Finn plays and their regular dances, weekly dances many times, but to have a Finnish American star come from New York to put on a performance in the small community was something that they really looked forward to, and if there was any chance at all, the people would go there, whether they were dancers or not, they went even to hear the performance.

Yes, it was a big event in most of the areas where she played.

- I have one friend who said that was the occasion to get a new pair of shoes from the co-op store, because Viola was coming.

Another friend said she and her cousin would have contests to see who had the prettiest dress made out of flour sacks.

At that time, flour sacks were recycled into sewing fabrics, and so everybody wanted their best and prettiest to put on when Viola came to town.

- And her dances are legendary.

They attracted large crowds, and people danced 'til they dropped, almost literally, and she was very popular in not only the Finnish American community, but I think the larger community as well.

Many people in the area will remember the dances that she did in this area.

- [Narrator] In 1930, Viola and John added Sylvia Polso to their company.

The trio recorded six sides for Victor in 1931.

That same year, William Syrjala and Andrew Kosola teamed up with Viola and Sylvia as the Finnish Accordion Quartet for one performance.

In 1933, the Viola Turpeinen Trio split.

Tragically, John Rosendahl fell down the steps of his New York City apartment house and died.

Sylvia Polso married and began a career on her own.

Viola got married as well, to her musical soulmate.

William Syrjala was born in Finland in 1898, but he grew up in Cloquet, where he learned to play a variety of instruments pretty much on his own.

- When he was a little youngster, his mother and dad had built a house, and they had taken in boarders that roomed downstairs, and they lived upstairs, his dad had built the house.

And they had instruments, they had violin and a trumpet, and when they were gone to work, he'd sneak in and learn to play on them, and he picked it up himself to start with.

- [Narrator] Eventually, Bill went to Valparaiso University of Indiana to study music.

Syrjala was just launching his own musical career when he met Viola on tour in Cloquet.

By the early '30s, he, too, was performing in New York City.

Their love began to blossom.

- Viola met Bill Syrjala sometime in the early 1930s, it's my understanding here in Cloquet, Minnesota, and they played together for a while and were eventually married in 1933 in New York City and formed a duo from that time on, and they played with other musicians, but they were a very close duet, both personally and professionally then for the rest of her life.

- [Narrator] After their 1933 marriage, Bill and Viola continued touring Finnish communities across the US and Canada.

- I think she had a certain route that she took each year.

She'd play at Cromwell, she'd play at Wawina, she'd play at Jacobson, she'd play on the Iron Range, and she just had this set tour that she went on every year.

- She had a very magnetic personality, and her music and her personality would work people up into a frenzy on the dance floor.

When she played her polkas, and she played a lot of them, you probably found people out there, if they didn't know the polka, they tried to learn it when Viola was playing.

- The dramatic way that she had of presenting herself, she always had a flowing dress on and a flower in her hair, and she was always suntanned and very glamorous to all of us.

(chuckles) - Well, she was very talented, she apparently played the accordion very well, but she also had kind of a star quality.

She was quite glamorous, she was very attractive, very lively, and apparently had a very good stage presence.

- She played with such charisma and life.

I, really, I haven't seen another woman accordionist play with the zeal and vigor of Viola Turpeinen.

And she loved her music; music was her life.

(cheerful jaunty music) - [Narrator] Viola's partnership with Bill brought a new depth to her performances.

Bill could choose from a variety of instruments when accompanying Viola's accordion.

- He played the trumpet, the violin, the viola, the guitar and the drums, he did a lot of the rhythm for the dances, so he was accomplished on a number of instruments, and he was also a prolific composer and arranger of music.

(lively polka music) - [Narrator] The couple performed and recorded Bill's music along with established Scandinavian favorites.

- Viola pulled a kind of a fast one on Bill with one of the numbers that he had been asked to compose for a Finnish play in New York.

I don't know the name of the play, but the name of the number that Bill composed was, in Finnish, "Unelma," and Viola liked the number so well that she thought she'd like to sing, and she went on her own to the recording studio and recorded this number, the first vocal that she had, and the name of the number that she recorded at that time was "Unelma."

And Bill was very surprised and very happy, and she did record a few vocals with her other performances after that.

(cheerful polka music) - [Narrator] Viola and Bill also shared a love for classical music, yet like the rest of America struggling through the Great Depression, the couple had to be aware of what would make money.

- He really liked classical music more than this music, but, the polkas and stuff like that, but he didn't go into it, because there was no money in it.

- [Narrator] They kept up a rigorous performance and practice schedule in New York, yet all the time, it was a labor of love.

- They played three to five nights a week sometime for dances in New York.

This goes back to where they were playing at the Fifth Avenue Hall in New York, and June said they played late, so they, Viola would still get up fairly early in the morning, but Bill liked to lounge around and read the newspapers and that.

They did a lot of practicing, Bill did a lot of work composing, and they lived music.

Both of 'em lived music all the time, during the day, and then when they performed at night.

- [Narrator] In 1939, the couple did a successful tour of Finland and Sweden, and through their years together, they continued to perform across the United States and Canada.

No matter where they went, Viola and Bill loved their fans, who would turn out in droves for their dances.

By all accounts, Viola became very involved with the people who enjoyed her music.

Stopping by for dinner or a sauna was not unheard of.

(upbeat polka music) - She was a very warm person, very friendly.

I think she especially liked children.

I know that my sister, I have two sisters, and she sent them necklaces and bracelets, and one of my sisters still has a birthday card that she got from Viola, and in there, she wrote something to the effect that, "I wish I were there to celebrate your birthday with you."

And she would let the kids come up and play with them.

She had maracas or triangles or some instruments.

- Then, of course, they always had their coffee session in the basement of the Finn hall, and that's where they got to meet Viola personally, and she was a very personable type of a person, so if you got to even say hello to her, you'd think she was your friend.

- Well, there are many stories, Viola stories.

People remember, oh, that she stopped at their house or that she ate at their place or that she took a sauna at their house or things like that, and there are many, many stories that abound.

A lot of people have personal reminiscences of her.

She was a popular figure.

She was a nice lady, apparently, and...

Probably because there are so many memories associated with the dances themselves, too, and as I say, she was a glamorous lady, so she's acquired sort of a larger than life persona that still exists among the older generation.

(lively polka music) - [Narrator] For many years, Viola and Bill had played in Florida at a Finnish hall in Lake Worth as part of their normal yearly tour.

As their fans aged and moved to retirement communities in the south, the couple's audiences in the northern part of the country began to diminish.

Also, their Harlem neighborhood was changing.

A mood was in the air.

- The Finns were pretty well getting out of Harlem, and there just wasn't a following for her music there anymore, so they moved to Florida.

- They played for many years in Lake Worth, usually in Kenttahall in Lake Worth, and many of the people that they had played for were now reaching retirement age, and many of them were retiring to Lake Worth, so there was kind of a built-in audience for them, and Viola's career ended there when she died tragically of cancer at the age of 49.

- Friends and her sister and others think that she had known about her cancer that finally took her for some time, but she wasn't letting onto it.

It finally got to the point where, instead of playing her regular piano accordion, she had to revert back to the smaller two-row accordion which she had first learned to play way back in Michigan in the early days.

And she reverted back to that, but still kept on performing until it was just finally too much for even that.

- [Narrator] Viola Turpeinen-Syrjala died on December 26th, 1958, at the age of 49.

Looking back, it's easy to see how Viola became a legend.

She rose from humble beginnings to achieve international success.

During her career, which spanned four decades, she barnstormed through nearly every Finnish American community in the country.

(gentle jaunty music) She recorded more than 100 different songs on three labels.

Viola raised folk music to a new level of excellence.

Perhaps most importantly, her technical skill and emotional connection with each song left its mark on future generations of musicians.

- Most people that listen to Viola's music say that she had the genuine Finnish beat, and many of the musicians that play the accordion have tried to duplicate that in some way, just like many accordion players try to duplicate Frank Yankovic for polka music.

A lot of our Finnish American bands have tried to duplicate that, and I don't know that any of 'em have really paralleled the way that Viola was able to perform on that accordion.

- [Narrator] William Syrjala continued to play at the Kenttahall in Lake Worth until he was well into his 80s.

He was finally forced to retire when his eyesight failed.

Bill died in 1993 at the age of 95, yet it appears he was never truly without Viola.

He kept her ashes in their home at Lake Worth.

It was his wish that they would remain together even in death.

- But he requested when he died that she'd be buried, placed in the casket with him and buried, and which she is.

- [Narrator] While Viola and Bill are gone now, their music lives on, captured forever in old recordings and kept alive in performances of present-day accordionists.

(bright polka music) One of the highest compliments an accordionist can receive is a comparison to Viola Turpeinen.

The Northern Stars have heard the comparisons before, and for good reason.

You see, the founder of their band was quite a fan of Viola's, and their sound came directly from her recordings and performances.

- Yes, he did, as a matter of fact, when he was young, he went to quite a few of her dances when she would travel around, and my father never did learn how to read music, but he picked up a lot of music just by listening to it, and so he would go to her dances and listen to her, and he would go home and try to repeat those songs that he heard her play, and that's how he learned a lot of the Finnish tunes.

- [Narrator] The Northern Stars currently consist of Joan Aho and her three daughters.

Although they play a wide variety of music, they agree that it's important to keep Finnish music vitally alive for their audiences.

It seems many people who come out to hear the Northern Stars play remember Viola.

- There's been a lot of people that will say, "Oh, I remember hearing that," or, "My mother and my father used to sing that song to me," or, "We did go to Viola's dances and remember her playing that," and so a lot of people remember that and remember her style.

- Yes, we played at places.

When we went to Massachusetts last year, we played at all these Finnish halls.

I think we played about 10, 12 times in 10 days, and they were all Finnish halls on Lake Shore, and they all had a sauna there, and we played a lot of Viola Turpeinen's music, and so many people came up to the stage right away after we got through playing, says, "Boy, that has to be Viola Turpeinen's song.

It sounds just like her."

And then they says when they used to, talking about when they used to go to her dances and know her many years ago.

- [Narrator] Nowadays, every weekend when the moon rises over Finland, Minnesota, the Northern Stars come out to shine in a neighborhood bar and restaurant called Our Place.

(lively music) (patrons cheering) Here, they serve up good food and great music, with an extra helping of hospitality.

(lively polka music) - Yes, I believe that I have consciously tried to, to imitate her style, and I guess I have grown up with it ever since I started lessons with my father, and we had her recordings.

And I never did have any music of hers, written music to learn her tunes, so I would learn them off her recordings, and of course, I would always try to imitate how she played her tunes, and so I have consciously tried to do that.

(upbeat polka music) (upbeat polka music continues) (mellow polka music) (mellow polka music continues) - [Narrator] From Finland the town to Finland the country, Viola's fans agree that she deserves a US postage stamp in her honor.

An attempt to do just that failed recently, but that doesn't mean Viola's fans have given up.

- There was a move to get a series of stamps that would be dedicated to famous accordionists, and Viola Turpeinen was named as one of those people, and the suggestions have been rejected, but this T-shirt was made as a protest T-shirt.

This is what the stamp would have looked like, or would look like if it ever gets passed.

So there's a movement of that sort.

- But meanwhile, since November, I've gotten 3,000 more signatures, so now seeing they turned it down, they told me we can try again.

So we will pursue it further, and we're gonna send in, working together with a Finnish American reporter in the Tyomies Society and paper, we're gonna resubmit 3,000 more signatures.

We're not gonna give up.

- [Narrator] Viola has at least been recognized by the profession to which she gave so much.

(gentle polka music) On June 22nd, 1994, this legendary musician became the Polka Hall of Fame's ninth inductee.

She was the first woman and the first Finnish American to be so honored.

(cheerful polka music) - And now that she's being inducted into the Polka Hall of Fame, perhaps that legend and her music will continue to grow.

And there are certainly a lot of people who are still continuing to play in the style of Viola and keeping the music tradition alive, which is probably the most important part of it.

(cheerful polka music) (cheerful polka music continues) (cheerful polka music continues) (cheerful polka music continues) (cheerful polka music continues) (cheerful polka music continues) (cheerful polka music continues) (cheerful polka music continues) - [Narrator] If you have suggestions for "Album" or comments about the program, please call 218-728-0306, or write to us at WDSE TV, 1202 East University Circle, Duluth, Minnesota, 55811.

We'd love to hear from you.

(cheerful polka music)