Finnish American Historical Archive and Museum - Kentsgenealogy ...

FinnishAmericanHistoricalArchiveand MuseumFINNISH FOLKLORE AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN THE GREATLAKES MINING REGION ORAL HISTORY PROJECT 1972-1978(Funded in part by the National Endowment For The Humanities)F.F.S.C.G.L.M.R. DIGITIZATION PROJECT 2010-2011(Funded in part by the Keweenaw National Historic Park AdvisoryCommission / U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service)CONDITIONS FOR USE OF .PDF TRANSCRIPT:Finlandia University, formerly Suomi College, holds the exclusive copyright to theentirety of its Finnish Folklore and Social Change in the Great Lakes MiningRegion Oral History Collection, including this .pdf transcript which is beingpresented online for research and academic purposes. Any utilization that doesnot fall under the United States standard of Fair Use (see U.S. Copyright Officeor Library of Congress), including unauthorized re-publication, is a violation ofFederal Law. For any other use, express written consent must be obtained fromthe Finnish American Historical Archive: archives@finlandia.edu.PREFERRED FORMAT FOR CITATION / CREDIT:“Maki, John”, Finnish Folklore and Social Change in the Great Lakes Mining Region OralHistory Collection, Finlandia University, Finnish American Historical Archive and Museum.Note: Should the Finnish American Archive be a resource for publication, pleasesend a copy of the publication to the Archive:Finnish American Historical Archive and MuseumFinlandia University601 Quincy St.Hancock, Michigan 49930 USA906-487-7347 - fax: 906-487-7557

1.I This is an interview with Mr. Adolph R~anen of 814 Ninth Avenue kast,Duluth Minnesota conducted by Adrian Niemi on December 4,1974. rI Okay Mr. Raianen will you tell us where you were born and when pl~ase?R I was born in in Finland on November 27, 1900.I When did you come to this country?R I was anin.fant, just about two years old.IDid you come with both of your parents?R Yes. The whole family.I Do you know why you're parents came here? For economic reasons?RYes.I To get better money?RI Where did you first come to this country?R Northern country. Minnesota, i tis quite common among the Finnish people inl thisI Then you've been around here all you're life in this part of the ,ountry?RI How much education do you have?R Well it's kind of hard to say because I went to grade school a~w IfLake and then I went to Duluth and I studied night school for manyyears. So I don't know exactly how I would say that.t It's hard to sayRI Did you speak Finnish at home?RWhere did you learnEnglish?R In school some and then naturally as I grew up.Do you recall if you' re parents talked about any special hardshipJ orexperiences they had coming over? 1

2.RNot in coming over noI What did they do in this country then?R They had a farm. they homesteaded a farm here.I Do you recall if they mentioned any unusual experiences from that! period?R Not so much but there must have been many of them but I can't rem tmberthem off hand.I I know it's difficult. Do you know if they got along with the ne t ghborSall right, do you ever hear them talk about that.R Oh one yes. man as No far problems back as at I all. can remember. In fact they One were man was all Finnish Irish and exceP he r ror dmarried a Finnish girl.I So that made him all right because he married a Finnish girl?VAroSo only one language waE needed there.long did you stay at home with your parents?R I was about twenty-four.Were they still on the farm then?RLes.I Did you leave to go someplace else?RWell I was occasionally working out and then I went to take up b~beringin Minneapolis which became my life then. II How long were you in school?R Jus-t while I waf ir school.IRLess than a year?Yes.I Do you 8~ill have relativesin Finland that you communicate with?R No, there would probably be some distant relatives but we don'tcommunicate.I Do you remember anything about Finnish organizations such as Kale~Club or Temperance Societies? I

J.RI How about Finnish choirs and bands?RRIWere you involved in anything like that at Wolf Lake?RI But you were still on the farm during the First World War?R Oh yes.I Did the war change your life style at all?RI How about the Depression?RI How large a family did you have?RWe had 7 children.I When did you move to Duluth?R 1925.I You've been here ever since then right?RYesI When did you retire from barbering?

leW noinu actualy died and I I didn't was next ~uly in retire line ~or because the job. one o~ I tried the members to do bot o~ t ouranddnuo~ out I couldn't so I closed the barber shop and had that bus ness'tnega job ~or ~ive years.My he got brother, sick next from to it the and oldest, died. I worked never in did the work mines in the in mines Bute Mont myse :f until butI knew quite a few miners.4.RI Was your clientel mainly Finnish or mixed?RIMixed.Have you noticed that the Finnish would want to stick together an~ gotothe Finnish businessmen?IR To a certain extent yes. When I went to night school I also stud edincome tax and when I got out right away they levied tax on thesmall businesses..mostly so I got busy right away and started fig ingtaxes. Then the following year they levied taxes on the common p opleso I took that on. It would have been more than a full time job utI kept on barbering too and I still do incometax work yet.IṚIRBeing in that kind of work you must have heard unusual stories abqutunusual people.IOh yes.What stories did you hear?Well one case I was filling out his income tax and I thought he dqesn'thave to file at all and he was worth sever~ hundred thousand dol~ars.I A surprise to you.R Yes, and some Finnish people if you were to see them on the stre , youwould think they were just paupers and they still have maybe a h dredthousand or more. They seem to hang onto their money.IDo you remember hearing any stories about Finnish people who work~d inthe lumber camps or mines?IR Oh yes, lots of them.I Can you think of any of them right now?RIDid you ever hear of ?R I don't think so.I Do you remember anything about the cooperative movements. or thesocialist movements?ROh yes

yes, definitely. More harm than god because they kind of blaCeht Finish nationality altogether with that. Many of them joinedesuaceb they had to not because they wanted to. And then inturn s mefo them became kind of radical themselves to.~ isted.5.R I remember we had a co-op store here.I Was that store here before you came?R No, I don't think so, maybe it was here before I came.IR I don't recall it nowI How about socialist or labor movements?RI So you would say that the IWW did more harm?ROhI Do you remember of hearing of any open fights between labor and malagementbetween the socialist groups and nonsocialist groups? l~R I have heard of some of them.I Sometimes they had quite violent feeling about each other.R Oh yes. And outwest they had quite a time.Have you lived in this part of Duluth for the last fifty years the~?Just about yes.Are there any particular events in the past of Duluth that stand o,Jt inyour mind? Unusual things that you might have taken part in or ob~erved?I don't knowDo you remember for instance any particular bad winters?R They had one or two but we were not here yet when they had those h avysnows, that was the winters before we came. People couldn't get 0 t forthree days. Even doctors had to go on skiis or snowshoes or somet ing.Cars couldn't move and horses couldn't go no place because the sno wasto deep. The streetcars couldn't run for I guess fouror five days becauseof the snow.

I That was before you came here right?RYes6.I Were you still at Wolf Lake at that time?RYesDo you remember what the weather was like there then?R We had quite a bit of snow but not as much as they had.IRWhen you were on the .farm did you have a car or truck?Ya. we had a carI Okay now about church, have you been active in a church?R Oh yes. practically all my life. We moved here shortly after we g t tmarried and got associated with a church right over here.I Were there Finnish language services at Wolf Lake with a Finnish p,stor?R Yes. Nothing but Finnish then and now nothing but English. If th Ywould have had English services 50 or 60 years ago I don' t think t eywould have had more than a ~f a dozen people there. Now if they ouldhave Finnish services in that same church they wouldn' t have more han4 or 5 people.I Do you remember the name of the Pastor at Wolf Lake?R Houskinen was the first oneIHouskinen?R There Yes, John were Houskinen many and was they the mostly first have one. died He's now. dead Then now, when he we died came in h 1 re hiO. wewent to Suomi Synod Church.I Did those ministers at Wolf Lake live there or go from one town to ~other?R Most of them were living in other places. I've serviced on the ch~chcouncil all the time I've been living here. It's the longest anyo~ hasever served, over 40 years.I It's a record then hey?R Yes. Now you can't do that, you can o~y serve two three year term~.I When and where did you meet Mrs. Rainanen?RIWolf Lake.Wold Lake?

sraey and I'm stil the State Wide Secretary for that organizatio .~ y7R Yes. Our families only lived about 7 or 8 miles apart.I How do you think your parents would have reacted if you had marriJd anItalian girl instead? Would they have liked it or not? lR I don't think they would have liked itI Would they have tried to stop you?R I don't know if they would have tried to stop me but it was excepi ional inthose days to go to another nationality. Now it's very common.I Some people say that many of the Finnish people who came here and Itheirdescendents have a tendency to drink alot, have you observed that~RTo drink?I Would you say that's true or not?R Unfortunately it is true.I It is true.R It wasn't so much years ago but nowadaysI Do you think there is any reason for that?R I can't see any reason for it because there's no need for itI Have you belonged to any Temperence Organizations?R No. We belonged to the Minnesota Finnish Historical Society forThe Finlandia Foundation also. I used to belong to the Barber'sAssociation and also the Journeyman's Union also.I Do you recall hearing from your parents Finnish folklore, sayings brexpressions or nursery rhymes maybe? ,-R.r Can you think of any right now?R No not all of a suddenI Okay. How about the names of the fingers?R I don't think I've ever heard thatI No. Can you remember any of those little sayings?R No, not that I can remember.

instance did someone ever get very sick at home and what WOUlddo if they did get very sick? Would you get a doctor or take someo ~ YOU e overto a hospital or what?do for that, just bind it up some way?you8I Do you remember hearing any stories about a person who could healmagically?R I have heard some of them but I never paid much attention to them~I Have you heard there are people who can stop blood from flowing bJ sayingcertain words. ~IR Yes I've heard that. I don't remember how it was done if it was done.IDo you remember any charms?R I don't remember them but I do remember hearing them.I How about any fishing charms?RNO.I It seems like some people spoke about these things in the families!they remember them more.andR Yes They were not very common in my home.I Well going back to the time when you were living at Wolf Lake, do ~ouremember any outstanding periods of time in that time?rR What do you mean?I ForR I remember one time my mother got sick and she couldn't talk at al. Itwas late Sunday night. We had a telephone and tried to get the do torand couldn't get any answer at all. So we heard about this man wh wasabout twenty miles from our house so we thought we'd have me try t goand get him. So he came and stayed all that day and when I took m homehe said I can't see what's ailing her." and he said if she gets bet eryoubring her to see me. So when she did get better we took her'to a edicaldoctor and she couldn't hardly walk so I went to see the doctor fi st.I told the doctor about the other one and he was startled and said doesn'the remember about two weeks ago me and another medical man and him were ata sick bed or death bed and she died from the same thing, doesn't eremember that at all. So we didn't go to him anymore because he d dn'tknow what it was at all and he was there a whole day.I What if someone on the farm got a cut and it kept bleeding what WOt ldR Yes and then there was one man you could go to that even took carelfractured bones and that.ot

yearsit'sago thatkind ofinhardthe nextto sayfivebecauseyearsIitrememberwill be allthemgone.sayingTheythi ~ rt ve-fiveden for it yet because there are some people that don't speak hingtub Finish.9I Do you remember if there were any kind of plants or wild plants t t tpeople grew in the yard that they used for medicine?R I heard about them but I didn't want to learn about them because ,t wasnot common practice and I didn't want to know about them. I don' know ifthey did any help or not.I Do you recall if your mother ever used them?RNo.When you were a boy did you ever have warts on your fingers?R No. I don't think I had them when I was a smaller boy but then w~n Iwas growing up I used to get them.IIDo you remember any unusual ways of getting rid of warts?ways of getting rid of them.Super8t~tioU8R Well lick I that guess and this then is take superstition outside but and take cover a bee it dead and where cut it the in wat hal f r and comesfrom the roof. Then as time goes on and that bee is rotted in the summertimeyoutre wart is gone.I I never heard of that one before, are there any other ones like t~t?R I don't remember any others.remember any.there were probably more but I don'tIAt Wolf Lake, I suppose you had a sauna?R Oh yes. the rumor has it that the Finnish settlers when they came heycleared enough land to build a room about 12 by 16 and then when t eycould they cleared more land to build a house and then when they m vedinto the new home they converted the original house into a sauna. Butit was not a sauna when they were first living there. They conver edit into a sauna later.IThatwas a modern sauna and not aR It was a sauna,sauna?I Oh that one. Did you have a,on the farm?RNo.I They still have Finnish language church services here don' t they?R They still have them although in many places they have terminated 1hemHow long do you think it will last?RWellbeen saying that every five years. I hope it lasts because there' a

10.IDo you think it's important to preserve Finnish tradition or lang4age?Such as the .'.Finlandia Foundation or the Kaleva?IRWell the Finlandia Foundation operates in Finnish or English, it' ~ optional.So that is turning to English too, the same as the Historical Soc.ety istoo. Some years ago, it was some English but predominately Finni h.I How long have you been in the Historic~ Society?R Well this is my fourth three year term as secretary and I was a mt berbefore that.I Do you remember how, who or whentt was organized?RWell actually credit is gi yen ~o Alex ~~io~~~~ he' s the founder 0 theEnglish Finnish Historical Society. There were others too before ikePastor Immonen who did quite alot of historical work gathering his oryof the Finnish people in America. Nowthat history book of Finns iAmerica is in Finnish and English.I Do your children know Finnish?R Not much, very lit-tle.IDid you ever try to teach your children Finnish?RNo, notFinnish.exactly because they don't succeed in school ifIf you teach a young child Finnish and Englishyou try to talkthen when heor she goes to school they don't know the difference and they are tuckSo then I felt I better not use 1tnn1sh to them at all, let them 1 amEnglish.I Do you think it' s good for older people to learn Finnish?R Yes, definitely, this day and age anyway. It's always better to owmore than one language. You get a deeper meaning out of a word if youknow it in more than one language. Sometimes a dictionary might h lpsome but you get a deeper meaning if you know more than one langu e.Two Gr more languages at least. If you could handle two or threelanguages or even three or four languages that's even better.I Do you remember, and 11m sure you do, stories about Finns being Mo~Olians?R Oh yes. I remember when I was going to school it was an old story ~henand we took it for granted but later on we found out different. II How did you feel about that t when you first learned that Finnish p~plewere Mongolians?IR I was too young to even distinguish between the Finn and the Mongo~an.I Did you ever hear that at one time Finnish people had hard times ge~tingjobs because they were supposed to be Mongolians? IR Oh yes, I heard about that.

11R That's It also why had judge some Cant bearing made on a becoming ruling on a citizen because of the was United confront stat ~ s. dwith that and he was the one who was granting the citizenship pap rs.