the following is a presentation of WDS TV it's almost 100 years since the first finish immigrants settled in the open lands in the Upper Midwest and like immigrants from All Nations each helped to shape a Heritage for the generations that followed many of us grew up among Finnish friends and relatives who reminisce from time to time about the happenings of old and the preservation of their music drama and literature has left a finnished tradition as Vivid and as colorful as when the first immigrants settled this land oh h they had left Finland because they had nothing most are unskilled poor and Rural in background farmers and woodsmen their Homeland caught in an economic and political [Music] transformation for these earliest immigrants the mov to America opportunity and new freedoms most early comers were young men unmarried and hoping to make their Fortune contrary to a commonly accepted notion it was not the resemblance of the landscape to Finland which first attracted fins to this Northern Wilderness instead it would be the opening of The Iron ranges of Michigan Wisconsin and Minnesota this would be a land where mining was King here the young Finn could find his first work in the M shafts or the rock piles of the goibi or massabi it was the hardest dirtiest and most dangerous work they would ever known you know it was real easy to get here it didn't cost you much everything would be set up you could come to the mines of the massaba range and get a job walk right up to the ship up to the shaft of the mine and you were hired but I'll tell you one thing try to get out the movement out of here was very difficult suddenly what was inexpensive became expensive and uh lots of people came here and were horrified at what they found in northern Minnesota the F air of the mine was in sharp contrast to the fresh air of the farmlands and forests of Finland in addition to the mine there was a trauma of living in a multiethnic town a town filled with saloons and back room gambling dens a young Finnish man would not send for his family until he was settled himself families remained apart often for years seasonal work added to their frustrations faced with hopelessness many of these miners would be forced to turn to the land when we talk about why the fins settle the surrounding Countryside another reason was the fact that those who stayed within the mines uh by say the year 197 some of earli fins had had a lot of experience in mining uh they knew about the dangers in the mine but they knew mostly about the way they were treated by their captains and bosses and I'll tell you one thing it was no different from Finland they were the lower class they were the nothings in fact the mighty captains bragged about it they talked about it he said we don't mind we push people through this mine in fact our mules are more important to us than some of these immigrant people they didn't look upon those people who are mining at sedan and in these minds of the masabo particularly as As Americans or as human beings they were foreigners they talked funny the fins were among them and and their treatment was bad and in 197 when the Western generation of miners organized uh those that early strike committee was put together by an immigrant Italian one uh TFO petriella but if you look at the members of his strike uh committee you'll see that a good share of those names were fins and it wasn't I don't think because the fins were the most radical of the bunch that was the largest number of miners in missa mines in 197 you look at the roles they were fins and Finnish names the result was the stri ERS were blackballed now the Irish men who were striking and people of of American and Canadian descent who were also striking among those fins they left but here now the young fin it's a long way to fin what are you going to do you've just brought your your loved ones your wife your family with you what do you do you have to make a living the land around the massabo range was entirely undeveloped it was still practic Ally free under Homestead and uh Lumber Company type type agreements they got the land for next to nothing sure they're going to take it sure they're going to take it it meant life to them and it also gave them a sense of something that they had been looking that's real important to fins and that's individual dignity I don't have to answer to somebody maybe Independence is in the decades that followed the turn of the century this Western Great Lakes saw enormous change the mining industry continued to grow new towns and communities sprang up around the region the lumber and Forest Industries began to Peak and the ratio of men to women had at last narrowed to less than 3:1 fins who were yet to arrive in America were attracted by the inexpensive acreage offered by Regional promoters and lumber companies although most land was located in cutover or submarginal farming areas these 40 acre plots seem quite large compared to the small two or three Acre Farms generally available in [Music] Finland I came in 1913 from Finland with my mother neither one of us spoke English naturally I just had barely learned finish we had shipping tags solded on to our clothes so that we would get lost along the way I was 3 years old at the time I uh we to the United States at Su St Marie from there to delot by train from delut to hiding by train that's where my father had come uh 3 years earlier worked in the mines but when we came he had also approved on a piece of property in the Trout Lake Township uh homesteaded it and built a one room Log Cabin we moved up there and we probably had a cow and a few chickens and we raised a garden them days we didn't have no social services or relief if you didn't work you uh [Music] starved hardworking people who came this country first they all do lots of hard work all the farm work is and some men go to the mining and they have no h to go to mining so they take the country land and they started farming and they have big families in it in that farm house I came here so much easy life oh that's awful hard hard work in Finland man and wife and even kids soon as they've going to do something they have to work so hard big family and all have to go work work work hard work so that's why my brother take me to this [Music] country the soils of this Northern Area were generally too poor to support a cash crop numerous fins established small Dairy herds to earn extra income this uh place I think is about the oldest Homestead around this area here a big area where the original part of the family is still living in John long has spent all 74 years of his life working the Family Farm his father had left him this used to be the old dairy barn we had about 15 mil cows here and a lot of young stock and then uh when we got rid of the cattle the last ones uh all about six years ago we had beef in it very end and then my shop was getting kind of crowded so I thought I'll move a part of my equipment here as long as there was a lot of extra room not unlike the early settlers of this area John divided his time between a full-time job and his farm and for over 43 years spent his daytime hours at floodwood squap garage and his evenings tending to the farm yeah Dad he always uh thought he wanted to be independent and uh like living on a farm like at first when he come he worked at the Sawmills to get money enough to buy land land was cheap at that time $125 an acre he cut all the material for the buildings of this land here the house the barn and whole works and then he started slowly working on the buildings and at the same time he was trying to open land clear land the house is all hand hued or a huge balsom and he done he done most of the work himself I don't know how he got those heavy logs up up on top always [Music] John's Mother Anna long still lives in a 1914 vintage home with John and another son Anna has demonstrated a meaningful life of hard work and dedication to her [Music] family [Music] foree [Music] [Music] [Music] for for nearly all of them America's early land settlers did some type of logging for the Finnish immigrant logging was a natural the interesting thing about a fin everyone was born with a ax in their hand or a pair of skis and so when they came over here they were excellent U um Lumberjacks if you want to call them Woods workers and they're very good at at uh Timber work nak clog cabins and that it itself adapted itself for them to do a lot of Timber work in the mines such as making underground shafts also the lumbering industry uh there were certain skills there that were very much needed especially running U uh logs down Rivers River Rats most of these Finnish boys had run a lot of logs into the old country by the end of the 1880s most of upper Michigan's logging operations had already been exhausted a large number of companies began moving West into Northeastern minnes inota and with them came The Lumberjacks despite dangerous working conditions many fins found this work acceptable the life of the Jack was generally unsettled and jobs could change with demand from large company to small but it allowed these men to wander from Camp to Camp well my thinking is that they uh they like uh Independant free to come and go and to what they uh like at least that's true of myself I I was never happy in somebody else's employment anal JY has spent his entire life working in the forests of northern Minnesota his earlier years cutting wood on his father's Farm the JY family moved to Isabella in Minnesota in 1945 some four years after ano started working this area today two of ano's sons alen Daniel run the family bus business for Fins and logging this family represents one of the last of its kind actually most of the people that settled here worked in for lumber camps and and the the owners of the camps were like from duth or elsewhere and then they stayed here during the week I think we're one of the few families that actually lived in Isabella through all the years and have stayed here there's others that live in Finland or others or or lived in the temporary camps around sa landing at Forest Center but that's all long fast now so the oldtimers used to be able to sit down and cut a cord to cord and half of wood and they made a real good days wage really good real real good it was hard work but if you were able to do it you made good money you know a pair of boots sold for 50 cents and you'd make $3 a day that's not too bad like the days of the 50 Cent Boots the day of the oldtime logger has long passed gone with the logging companies that supplied their work the logging wasn't that steady of a vocation and uh and farming proved to be a little bit too too rough to make a livelihood and they largely left uh during World War I into defense Industries and uh and the service and the older generation of course A lot of them have passed on and and some moved out otherwise logging um say pretty pretty uh tough game you know it's it's it's the buyer market and I don't blame the MS that buy this product it's a good business but U the logger has no control over the price of the product that's the decided by somebody else and if it's a law of supply and demand let's put it that way yeah times have changed there's there's more planning and the you know long range planning it's a whole lot different than just going out and putting in A Hard Day's work anymore you got to do that too but there's all the planning and the paperwork and all that to go along with it they they say that uh the fin finlanders are no for what they call the sissu part of it which uh is just whether you're too uh too stubborn to quit or too ignorant to quit or whatever it is but when the going gets hard well you just you slow down a little bit then well well what the heck we'll do it you know and after a while it's that's part of the challenge too is it that s can cost you lots of [Laughter] money fin whether living in the forest on the farm or in the City generally grouped together they more or less created their culture within a culture to the first generation fins the preservation of a strong Finnish Community was as important as making their own home fins preserved Finnish culture because they had to here that's the only way they could survive and they took what was first and the fins may have take and did take it a lot farther than any of the other National groups I think we have enough evidence to say that very boldly now uh they took to educating their own people you you could read a Finnish language we had Finnish language newspapers on the Range you got all the news in Finnish had them and still do uh and that the idea of educating the the young in America in 196 was Far different from the way it is now for spee fore [Music] the years between the turn of the century and the end of World War I saw a great change for the Finnish rural School America had changed its three reception about patriotism the new American public school began to see the importance of unifying their country with this common bond for The Young School AED Finn this process would begin with the learning of the English language no easy task this finished to English transition would continue in rural areas for some 30 years pressure was added to attaining a higher educational standard but aside from this these were just enjoyable times perhaps simpler times well there was there was pressure but and we were oh some people look down on us even because they thought we were a different breed of people that we weren't we weren't as good as the rest of them well when I went to school the first day I didn't it was only a teacher it wasn't a teacher it was just a girl that give me paper and pencil and that went on for a couple weeks before I found out she was a teacher once I had to go in the corner there was two boys sitting in front of me and I was sitting in the back with another girl and the boys were they had some animal cookies and they had a pen knife and they stabed that pig with a and I laughed and I had to go in the corner and boys didn't get nothing that's and killing a pig being that we were finnished well we just spoke Finnish and we went in with the horse horse drawn buses and there was one family that were German and they would sit there with their mouths open listening to us talk Finn all the way and then of course there was some complaints about it so the superintendent from school put a sign in the school bus that this is America talk our language there are still Recollections of difficulties with the language I had uh difficulty with the language up to uh the first grade but I think in some rural communities like toy vola or P country or embarrass where all the kids talked Finnish and then they were integrated in as a team uh the the school teacher could uh do it in a different way and I don't think was that much of a difficulty naturally they still retained accent I suppose it's just inborn they're just used to saying things a certain way and I don't want to imitate them because you possibly have heard the how uh oldtime Finn really talks uh efforts were made however to uh see what can be done about the accent but the accent tends to remain oh the The Finnish people do have there it's hard for them to say their FS or s's or even the v's but it depends what part of Finland they came from 30 40 years ago it was the language barrier that um made the difference many of the fins when they came to this country they had difficulty in pronouncing uh English word and um that kind of caused a problem with other nationalities they uh fins had a tendency to speak their own language they still do now days night schools and citizenship classes helped fins pledge themselves to become American however some fins tended to view this process as an attack on Finnish Heritage the question of Language and Cultural maintenance became particularly sensitive to the Finnish Church to those Outside The Finnish Community it was merely upon as being overly nationalistic or clannish and yet The Finnish church was the first Community Building constructed in many rural areas and for stricter fins all social activities were tied directly to the church The Finnish language continued in most churches until the 1950s however many fins began to see the need for an additional Gathering Place for social Recreation this is a Cedar Valley Community Center currently serving as a a town hall and originally built as a fin Hall by residents of the area Halls like this I remembered by my generation at Social centers where uh people met for uh athletic events for recreation for plays and dances and they also served a good local for weddings and funerals and uh anything of interest to the community where a group was required to get together this was it [Music] it is possible that no other ethnic group in America has built and owned as many Halls as a fence even so buildings like this one are few and far between these Halls still serve their communities but their original purpose has somewhat diminished to the early fins and their children the hall helped Bond their families to the community it was a place where only Finnish would be heard a place where you could dance sing or watch a play all in your own language Finn Halls were the home for all Finnish organizations cultural political or religious you might say the Halls also established the first local gyms although somewhat different from today's health clubs gymnastics were for both men and women even though most halls and Hall goers have disappeared their tradition of the hall Gathering continues today these gatherings give Finnish Americans a chance to listen to and to study their Heritage I believe that Finnish people have always been sort of culture hungry people um they have always had their athletic associations their their con their the orchestras their their choir and um the concerts and whenever there's any opportunity for music making or dancing uh they always took advantage of that uh they were um interested in light comedy and uh it seemed to me that the lives that they had led uh left them in want of something funny something easy to look at and something to laugh at and then go home and think about it but Finnish people also appreciate drama very much you know they think that you know an empty play is an empty play they mean mean it says nothing to it you know Finnish American Show Business dominated most Halls the entertainment served as a good source of fundraising which helped to provide the hall with money for new construction and maintenance most of the actors were taken from the community if they wanted to participate in the choir and if they wanted to sing if they wanted to perform in an orchestra um you would certainly come and say that well I I could tickle a violin or I could play an accordion and would there be a place for me I think that people would come around and ask and uh I don't think anyone was ever turned down you know because you're more than welcome to have you musical play seemed to be a sure way to bring large audiences to your hall most members were more genuinely concerned with the entertainment value of the hall rather than the political views of the organization to which it was Affiliated this however did not stand in the way of feuding between the ranks they just wanted a better place for all the new people coming in The Finnish people especially from Finland and a lot of single people and and at the time it was a sort of a all they trying to see who gets to the Socialist Opera and who gets into the temperance which group they would join and uh instead of getting out and getting to the taverns or the wrong groups of people they decided to have a a place for them and uh we had a very big membership there it seems to me it wasn't two 300 at one time IL manami is one of the last remaining members of Virginia's Temperance Society we used to get big crowds from all around the range towns here for just about anything that went on there we'd have big crowds and uh then sometime they'd have dancing after and always coffee and lunch and uh no they had we had very good actors here and put on regular nice plays a hall is a place where people can come together and socialize and and exchange fellowship or common ideas or something Al together where does a hall furnish or flourish the best a place where you can get together with your own kind the farther you are away from home if home is close and everybody has home close to them that Hall will not survive and if you look at the story of of men Minnesota Northeast Minnesota the Halls would were destined to disappear as immigrant peoples begin to feel and be at home in America the the hall then is the place where one it it takes the place of the family it's Mom and Dad it's it's all of these things that you don't have when you're far away from home well the younger generation just wasn't interested and people got older and and then uh but when we decide to sell we did try to sell it to a Finnish Group which in that way the civa people bought it and they have carried on since and [Music] well tonight's performance is a little more festive than usual but we have been having performances and activities at the former Temperance hall now the C Hall since 1906 and it has a beautiful wooden dance floor and there have been thousands of miles danced on the floor tonight we are dedicating uh new backdrops and scenery that have been painted as part of a restoration project for the hall [Music] today's finish folk dancing is kept alive with authentic costumes and traditional dance steps by such groups as aisar we have been together for 14 years and our purpose is to preserve Finnish Heritage and traditions here in America because if we want to first of all enjoy Finnish activities and Finnish tradition here we have to build it for ourselves and also if we want to present it to the American audience we have to create it and make it available to the American audience America is made of traditions from nearly all parts of the world without performances like these our country would lose its heritage [Music] this is a Cooperative star in Maple Wisconsin a star that's been an existence and operation for 72 years and it was organized like many other cooperatives were by first generation fins who wanted to increase their buying power during the early 20s people in Northwestern Wisconsin and Northeastern Minnesota found these crop stores in almost every Finnish community in some areas they were called the fincap and the Finnish people call them the Osos scula no I I think that on on the whole in the small communities The Cooperative played a very important part Jack Kano of Lake neagan Wisconsin worked for over 40 years in a Cooperative business starting his career as a young accountant and eventually working into management of the marketing and print shop for the central operatives in Superior it was a great help to many of the uh people in a lot of ways it it was a kind of a well you might say a kind of a cultural social Center for them of course as the as these people were building these Cooper of course they had beside uh taking care of the immediate needs On Life's Necessities uh meeting and cooperating they uh uh it was a real strong feeling that uh they were helping uh the nation as a whole that they were working towards uh a more just economic system where um the coroporate would give balance to these ups and downs so as to eliminate if possible the depressions that they had just lived through and so there was a great deal of hope uh on the part of of the members that would play a real important part in the economy of the land I suppose it was the economic circumstances that brought the the people in this area uh together because they they had to cut expenses and they were mostly finish out in the rural area so it got synonymous with fin store a lot the cops in our area were synonymous with the Finnish immigrants the idea and principles behind cooperatives originated in England these principles offered offered no one person control of the store but rather each Patron became a stockholding member and in turn each member regardless of shares held had the right to one vote in deciding the store's business practices by controlling their own store the members ensured lower prices better quality items and Superior Service for themselves and it was something that gave us a distinction of being apart from any other Supermarket or grocery store we had the coop label and this was made us different the people knew when they came in to buy that you know the uh Red Label green label and the blue label they knew what they were buying but now with the name brands it's it's all grade A or better but uh oldtime customers they they preferred the quop label especially the qu coffee the flour and there was a lot of a lot of items that uh well everything that is packaged was packaged under the quop playable but increased competition from other markets and other products made it increasingly difficult for the cops to keep up the very fact that they were so Democratic was to their detriment because they couldn't make changes fast enough it it took always an annual meeting or a year or two to make a change and uh it just didn't work out that way in in a modern world you have to make decisions right now yeah and I suppose that uh the boards and some of the managers were uh probably would say too Thrifty too that they it would wind up to the same answer that they were not spending the money that it required for growth advertising and otherwise with changing times and conditions some stores like this one in Zim Minnesota are forced to close or sell out and stores that do survive and keep operating find that business is no longer done in the Cooperative way you know this this has gone uh your old like I say your Old-Timers uh with and the newcomers now with the lack of Cooperative education have you know we're just a another grocery store uh we are servicing the area of the community and uh I'd hate to see it disappear because you know down the road uh they' have to drive 20 mil to buy their product one institution that has maintained identification as the Finnish tradition is the fin sauna with few exceptions very few finnished homesteads were developed without a sauna and many are still in use today Marty Masson tells us all about it this log SAA is uh one of the different styles of SAA is being built yet in this country and uh I guess I've built a few types myself to kind of fulfill the requirements of being finnished in this country or being associated with fin I suppose that this uh SAA is the one real true thing about Finnish culture that's come here from Finland and stayed here and has spread to other people as well one of the best things I think about the Americanization of the Finnish Sona is that so many non-fs have them and have developed this kind of a Sona social culture I don't really know why the SAA should continue as being something that's the only place for cleanliness in the family the the tubs and showers certainly are better but I certainly couldn't live without one I know a lot of other people too and non fins who have to have a SAA it's a possession for one thing it's also another place to Bath something that uh makes them feel good welcome to solum Sol lumpy is a finish language training camp co-sponsored by the Concordia College and the Sol lumpy Foundation board it provides a unique and exciting learning experience for those who want to learn more about their Finnish Heritage their culture and customs [Music] Larry s Sol Lumpy's Dean explains why Sol lumpy is a valuable tool in preserving Finnish heritage it's important to preserve Finnish Heritage in the case of people whose ancestors came to this country from Finland to preserve ties between the two countries so that people have a sense not only of being Americans which we do not intend to diminish in any way but also a sense of what what it means to be an American that American people are have a culture that is made up of a combination of many different cultures and certainly in this part of the country The Finnish culture is a part of it especially in those families where there are some ancestors who have come from Finland and also we don't only intent that they realize that there is a Finnish culture but that there are other cultures besides that each of these cultures is important during the students's two week day at Sol lumpy they learn finish in the same manner as because he learned English theoretically everything is done and finish at Sol lumpy of course when you get a group of young people together who don't speak fluent finish they need to communicate with each other so you will hear an occasional English word here meal times we encourage a lot of Finnish at the table children can't get something if they ask for it in English they can ask how to say it and then ask for it in Finnish but they can't just say may I have the milk because we're all deaf to English at the table traditional finished meals are served each day to the solp campers and staff including servings of baka Bako l f and vuro nearly all activities at the camp help to reinforce the instruction of the Finnish language everyday activities such as a visit to the post office can be a learning experience if they want to get any mail that's come for them they have to ask for it in finish and identify themselves in Finish the person who's then giving the mail out won't give it to them until they ask and finish but at the same time will'll help them if they're having a little trouble saying it in finish we don't want to deprive them of their mail we don't want to sound threatening it's the same way at the bank and at the kioski our store where they can buy things they have to ask for it in finish but the people selling it will help them ask staff counselor has worked together to make learning a fun experience in addition to those instructors from our area guest counselors from Finland helped to add additional insight to Modern Finland is alanan has been a longtime member of the Sol lumpy staff teaching dance and the K in addition to ensuring the proper instruction of the Finnish language American FS who have moved immigrated in the beginning of century they have wanted to preserve that culture and traditions which they had in those days in fil but now nowadays in modern Finland the culture has been influenced by other Western cultures we are trying to bring with us one part of modern Finland here one part of our Traditions what we know what we can bring and trying to create this language Village like it like it would be somewhere in real Finland another of the Finnish born instructors is hanua tradition plays a special part in his teaching My Generation Um at' 70s and ' 80s uh have uh Heard lots of American music movies and uh they have or we have get lots of influences from here so when I was under 20 years old I laugh left finished traditions and I didn't care about them them but now I grown up a little bit older and I have understood something about finish traditions and when I came here and I sang Our National hum Anthem and uh some other finish songs for example our Blue Cross flag um I almost cried because the feeling was so familiar and I was surprised that I I sing that song in America I didn't care it in Finland those who have observed the Sol lumpia experience will agree that the Finnish language and the Finnish culture are being kept alive in the United States if a young person comes here and knows no finish at all and by the way they don't have to know any finish to come here because they learn it here they learn everything they need here and we try not to make anybody uncomfortable because they don't know the language they are not going to go home in 2 weeks speaking fluent Finnish if they come back year after year naturally they increase their knowledge of finish and then in the 50 weeks that they have off every year hopefully they'll be practicing it with their parents or grandparents who may speak Finnish or they'll be doing some work on their own learning finish but what we really want to do is create an interest in Finnish and culture and language so that they will continue on their [Music] own most of the original immigrants have passed on but those of us who were born of immigrant parents have shared many of the finnished Traditions Traditions that were woven into our American lifestyle in one sense we lived in Two Worlds and witness a mixture of ethnic culture I think one of the the obvious differences between the Contemporary Finnish culture and the Finnish American culture is that our culture stems from The Finnish immigrants which was a a I think an entirely new spirit of its own the people that came over um were you know looking for something and they were willing to endure a lot and I think that's really maybe that's what's more important than than the actual Finnish tradition is that Finnish American Lua modern times times that reflect on past memories of the experiences of our past Generations experience that led to the preservation of a culture and then the Improvement of self family and Community let us remember these past experien expences as the Stepping Stones leading to the conditions we enjoy today and for the culture and Heritage that we share through these stepping stones in this our Uzi AA for [Music] [Applause] [Applause] do