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| My father in 1945. |
Below is the speech I made earlier today at The Finnish Hall in Berkeley as part of the commemoration for Finnish Independence Day.
Anteeksi, isä. (Excuse me, father.) Being a typical Finn, my father would not be pleased with me for talking about him so much, especially as I’m going to say so many nice things. But I’m not here to today to brag about my old man. No, today I’m using his story as an example of the type of Finn who in the first half of the 20th century came to the Bay Area and other parts of the U.S. and made a better life for themselves and their progeny.
In settling in the U.S. my father never forgot where he came from. Like other Finns, he clung to his roots, his culture and his language while enjoying the fruits of prosperity in America.
Typical of Finns who immigrated to the U.S., he deeply loved two countries and lived comfortably in two worlds.
Aimo Johannes Hourula was the first of eight children born to Saimi and Otto in Nivala in the north of Finland. He was born in the dead of winter — and I suppose it would be redundant to call it a cold Finnish winter as if to suggest there’s any other kind. We’ve all heard the old saw of parents and grandparents claiming to have trudged miles to school in the snow. Aimo literally did.
Not surprisingly Aimo could not continue schooling beyond his teen years. Going to a university would have seemed a wild fantasy. Instead he worked in saw mills. His family had enough of everything. No one ever went to bed hungry. But Aimo knew there was a better life out there somewhere for anyone willing to look for it. Though he lived and had grown up a long drive from the coast he also dreamed of taking to the sea.
By the time he entered his twenties, big trips for him had been going to Kemi and Oulu. He was content with life but dreamed of more. All such dreams were put on hold when the Soviet Union invaded Finland in the Winter of 1939. There was no question about his enlisting.
Later in life Aimo would begrudgingly talk about fighting the Russians. My father told of sleeping outside in thirty below zero weather. Of taking Russian prisoners and how scared they were and underdressed for the occasion and even giving one his dinner. He told of watching comrades die in battle, and the white snow covered with red blood. He talked of not knowing whether he had killed anyone. Yet despite all the horrors of war he claimed never to have been scared. Aimo insisted that he was simply doing a job. Typical Finn.
As history tells us the Finns fought bravely with roughly four Russian soldiers dying for every Finn killed. But the sheer numbers of the enemy were overwhelming and defeat was inevitable.
Disheartened, my father returned home. But not for long. It was time for him to actualize the dreams he’d had. He went to Petsamo and got on a merchant marine ship. He was going to see the world.
He picked one heckuva time to do it. World War II was raging and the seas were not safe. Twice he was on ships that were strafed by German planes, Later he was on a ship that was torpedoed. More on that in a minute.
One of his first stops was New York. Imagine coming to New York City after living in small town Finland all your life. He was mesmerized and fascinated. At age 24 he saw people of color for the first time. He sampled many foods for the first time, including certain fruits. Aimo remembered buying a grapefruit thinking it a large orange. Years later he could laugh at the memory of taking his first big bite of grapefruit.
Among the things he found in New York was other Finns. At the time there was something of a Finntown near Harlem. He remembered an African American grocer who greeted him by saying: “mitä poika haluaa.” It blew his mind.
Aimo made New York his home base but continued to sail seeing the world. He had long stops in Australia and Argentina. When I was a child he told me that he stayed in those cities because he liked them. I got the R rated version when I was older, in both cities he’d met a woman. And in both cases he fled when the conversation turned towards marriage. He was decidedly not interested in settling down, he had more to see.
On a Sunday morning in January 1944 in the Arabian Sea he was at the helm of a Liberty ship when he saw plenty in the form of a periscope from a Japanese submarine. He called the first mate to have a look see but the mate told him not to worry, that they weren’t looking at a periscope. Seconds later they were very much looking at a torpedo heading their way. The ship’s cargo included TNT. Needless to say the missile missed the TNT but it did enough damage to sink the ship. My dad and crew were soon picked up by a Norwegian tanker and taken to Iran. Undaunted by the experience, Aimo quickly got on another ship and continued his travels. Typical Finn.
Later he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He wasn’t keen to leave the merchant marines but wanted to serve his new country and being in the army was a quick route to U.S. citizenship. Soon after the war ended my father met a graduate student at Columbia University named Kerttu Kurki who was born of Finnish parents in San Francisco and had grown up in Berkeley. In fact her father, my grandfather, Emile Kurki, was one of the men who helped build this hall.
My parents had a whirlwind romance, marrying a few months after meeting. A year later they moved to Berkeley. Shortly after that Aimo joined the Finnish Brotherhood and was a regular at this hall for various functions for the next 60 years. We celebrated his 90th birthday here and later held his memorial service here.
Aimo had started work as a carpenter in New York. Moving to the post war Bay Area was fortuitous. A building boom was just beginning. There was plenty of work. It was said in those days that if you wanted to find a Finn in Berkeley all you had to do was visit a construction site. On a lot of jobs my dad worked on the entire crew were Finns.
Aimo had it made. Relative to his upbringing, he was rich. He owned his own home, along with a car and truck. His wife didn’t have to work. He had health insurance, a strong union to protect his rights as a worker. He had money enough in the bank to invest. His home boasted a dishwasher, a refrigerator, a washer and dryer and a television set. Unimagined luxuries in Finland at the time. He even had a sauna, a little bit of Finland in the home. To my father it was a life of luxury. He had two sons — I was the second — who would have all the advantages he didn’t and would go on to achieve advanced university degrees. He took great pride in my brother and I and at the same time we revered him. He was, incidentally, a terrific father.
Being a typical Finn he was a hard worker who didn’t take days off and seemed to never get sick. At least not sick enough to stay home. He got up early on cold mornings and worked. He worked on hot afternoons. He didn’t complain. Typical Finn.
But it most certainly wasn’t all hard work. There were regularly functions at this Finn Hall. There was the Ski Lodge which he was member of. There were picnics, barbecues, parties, holiday and birthday celebrations. There were football and baseball games, track meets, boxing matches, there was fishing and hunting frequent trips to Tahoe to gamble and take in shows and ski. It seemed to be a constant whirl of gatherings and celebrations. Life was grand. And the weather here was something he and other Finns bragged to the people back home about.
My father always credited himself with leading a mini migration to the Bay Area. He wasn’t exaggerating. He coaxed his younger brother Unto to move here and reap the benefits of this land of plenty. He also inspired his cousins, Reijo and Laura Mehtela to move here. His sister-in-law Elsa, Unto’s wife, encouraged her sister Sylvi to come here with her husband. His cousins brought others too. There were good-paying jobs for everyone. Like most Finns my father had relatives here now to go along with his many friends and co-workers who were Americans of all stripes.
He loved his country all right and he also loved the Finnish Hall and the Finnish community it represented. Though being a typical male Finn of his generation he wouldn’t have said so, certainly not in those words. I recall when he met a girlfriend of mine who is today my wife of 37 years — hi Kathryn, how am I doin? — I asked my father what he thought of her. “Yeah, she seems all right.” He said. “Wow, I thought he really likes her.” He was always understated. Typical Finn.
The times were great for Aimo and other Finns, but life has a way of giving us an occasional slap in the face. My mother developed serious mental health problems. This was the kind of thing people didn’t talk about at the time, certainly not taciturn Finns. My father hadn’t a clue how to handle the situation. He was shattered.
But life isn’t so much about what happens to us as it is how we respond to it.
A typical Finn, Aimo was a tough guy, resilient. The type of person who gets right back up after being knocked down. I learned some valuable life lessons from him: no matter what you keep moving forward. You don’t stop and feel sorry for yourself. You’ve got things to do, you take the next step. This is nothing he ever said, his actions said it. He was not much for philosophizing, he was a doer. In other words, a typical Finn.
Eventually my father re-married and got on with his life. He never recovered from the shock of what happened to my mother but he didn’t let tragedy define him. The presence of the Finnish community was integral to his finding joy in life again.
Aimo had a fulfilling and happy retirement, highlighted by six grandchildren a few of whom are here today. He lived to the seemingly ripe old age of 92 but in truth a freak fall cost him many more years that he’d seemed destined to live. Before the fall no one would have bet against him reaching 100.
A typical Finn my father never regarded himself as anything special. His kids, his grandchildren, sure they were special, but he saw himself as an ordinary guy. It used to be that on this day in this place veterans of the Winter War were asked to stand. They received a hearty round of applause. I was sitting next to him the last time he was thus recognized. He sat down quickly, before the clapping had even ceased. “I don’t like this,” he grumbled. He didn’t want to be singled out for doing his duty. He was a Finn and Finns do what they need to do whether it’s build a house, attend a party, wash their clothes or fight in war. What’s the big deal? For my dad it was like being applauded for going to work.
I’ll close with this: a few months before the fall that ultimately claimed his life, an Italian filmmaker who’s played a role in our family, made a short movie about Aimo Hourula. In it my dad talked about his life, especially his various adventures. But what struck me was at the very end when he was asked for a general philosophy of life. It’s something I’d never thought to ask him. In response all he said was to be nice to people.
Of course he said that, because all his life he WAS nice to people. You know, a typical Finn.
Kiitos ja hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää. (Thank you and Happy Independence Day.)
