Finnish American Historical Archive and Museum - Kentsgenealogy ...

So you sort
of helped to clean up the side of the road.
1.2
~dia: And in t~e ~tert~e a~e'd read us stories or else we'd blow bubbles.
She'd use an emptY spool of thread that she t d boil in soap, to sterile them I 's se,
and then we'd have a big basin of soap and water t to see who could b1ow the bigg st
bubb1es.
Did your mother and father speak Finnish to you most of the time?
F
Lydia:
Art:
Yes.
Where did you first learn English to speak, was 1 t at school?
~dia: No, see I had so many older sisters and brothers so I knew all my ABC I S and a fe~
I
words to read. I was almost 7 years old when I went to school. Because when we were
in the lumbercamp, there wasn I t any school around there.
Art:
Did your mother and father learn to speak English?
Lt,dia: M.Y" mother went to school over her.et ..I think she went to about 5th or 6th grade.
So she knew how to read t write and speak English. But dad not being able to s t
and grandma and grandpa t we weren't allowed to speak English to grandma and gr
because they couldn't understand it tit would be an insult s or dishonor.
I know many times when I didn't know how to pronounce a wordt I'd spell it out t
one of my sisters t my mother would tell me what it was. I'd look at her t I co 't
understand how she doesn't talk Englisht still she can read a word that spelled ut.
When you started going to school, did you find that you got more and more famil~
with English and used Finnish language less? I
,
Lydia:
About the s_e.
to school.
Because we spoke English to our young friends even before we w~t
When you vent to school did you have friends vi th children of other nationali ti t .
did the Finns mix pretty yell with the other kids?
Lydia: We fun got of us along. Finlander Of course roundheads there t were cotton-tops a couple t but of "stinkers" not very many-. in school But who I had used a gi t;mak.e friend,
one of English, one was Croatian, and there were some Finns, and French t so we ixed.
How did the Finns get alo~ with each other?
~dia: I didn't hear of any troubles.
leave you alone".
They stuck by themselves t
"leave me alon~7 and ~'ll
Art;
Did your family belong to aD3 Finnish organizations?
Temperence Society or coo~erative?
~dia: When we lived in Redridge, my uncles and same of my sisters belong to Temperence
They used to have socials, and get-togethers and dances.
They had dances at Temperence?
Lydia: Maybe I'm wrong but I remember them talking about dances.
Saturday night dance that they used to talk about.
Maybe it was just a
Art:
W84 there
a co-op store near the Lake Mine?
Lfdia: Bot at that time, there wasn't.
to it.
But there was one in Mass afterward.
We didn'~
belong