Finns in Minnesota

Rural and Agricultural Settlements

the Finland swedes  85 did not survive to adulthood, a daughter was severely injured by a stray gunshot, their first house burned to the ground during the middle of winter, and two grandsons later drowned in Lake Superior—several members of the Jackson family, as well as a few neighbors, lived out their lives in far northeastern Minnesota.Survival,one daughter later wrote,was accomplished only by“hanging on.”139 Rural and Agricultural Settlements Finland Swedes were scattered throughout several areas of rural Minnesota, but even when they clustered together their numbers were seldom sufficiently large to give them an identifiable presence, most notably when nearby Finnish or Swedish immigrant communities were larger. This situation characterized the small settlements formed by farmers and laborers in three townships west and north of Duluth—Herman (16 Finland Swedes in 1920),Solway (21), and Rice Lake (17)—and farther north at Markham (20) and Makinen (16). Only one St. Louis County rural enclave— settled in 1907 and located six miles east of Cook along the East Little Fork River—was exclusively inhabited by Finland Swedes (16 in 1920). Much father to the south and located just outside the cutover region in Mille Lacs County was another group of Finland Swedes (25)—two-thirds of them concentrated in Bogus Brook Township,including six families who had originally settled in Hopkins.140 Minnesota’s largest settlement of rural Finland Swedes emerged in Aitkin County during the 1890s when some immigrants moved from Duluth-Superior to the Mississippi River townships of Workman and Logan, served by the village of Palisade after 1909. Among the earliest were eight members of one family: Matt and Josephine Kullhem and their six sons, all born in Finland. Workman was unique in that its 1920 population of sixty-four Finland Swedes far exceeded the fifteen Swedes and one Finn 86  people oF minnesota who lived there. Workman’s Finland Swedes were seamlessly linked to the twenty-eight who resided in adjacent Logan Township. Another smaller settlement of Finland Swedes, located twenty miles southeast of Palisade and just north of Lawler, also dates to the late 1890s.The seventeen immigrant Finland Swedes who resided there in 1920 were situated on bothsidesof theSalo-Spaldingtownship line,close to Sheriff Lake.141 Organizational Life Some Finland Swedes sought to link their early organizations to those sponsored by Finnish-speaking immigrants . A few employed Finnish names, others were intended to serve as bilingual societies, and a small number attempted to affiliate with larger Finnish organizations such as temperance associations and the Suomi Synod.Language differences posed too great an obstacle, however, and the collaborations ended quickly. Thereafter, the institutional activities of America’s and Minnesota’s Finland Swedes focused on three major areas: religion, temperance, and benefit societies. From the 1930s onward , Finland Swedes also participated in the cooperative movement.142 One of the Finland Swedes’ flagship institutions was organized in 1898 in West Duluth: the Swedish-Finnish Lutheran Evangelical Church. When it proved difficult to secure a permanent pastor in 1902, the congregation asked Olga Bergström, aFinlandSwede, immigrated to Minnesota in1903andlearnedFinnishas a Hibbing boardinghouseservant. She married Finnish-speakingimmigrantEdwin Petrell (Peltari) in 1905, and thecoupleestablished a smallfarm in northeastern Fairbanks Township,where she servedas postmistress,learnedphotography, and huntedforsmallgame. Thefamilylivedin Minneapolis, Chicago,andSeattle (1910–12and 1917–31) before returningto thefarm,where they resideduntilher deathin 1941. ...