My Family Story

How we remember …

Her name was Kerttu. When she married my grandfather she switched to Gertrude, and was best known as Gertie. It is not uncommon for ethnic names, that are difficult to pronounce with a rolling R, to be changed to the English/American version, but I also wonder at the symbolism and shift that might have come with it for her.

As a family, we know very little about this piece of our history. I have relied entirely on my Aunt, the oldest, for the few specific facts that we have. Speaking with each of Gertie’s children, asking them to recall their memories of growing-up with her as their mom, has allowed me to get a sense of how bright and kind she was as she ran a household with 4 children on the Iron Range of Northern Minnesota. They showed me her resilience, the joy she experienced in her life, and above all else her ability to love and let each of them (her husband and her children) be exactly who they were.

I remember their family house from my childhood, as it passed down to their youngest daughter after Gertie’s death. I remember spending time there with my Auntie and cousins. I can still feel, in my body, standing in Gertie’s kitchen, moving through the rooms of the house, picking blueberries across the field in her berry patch. I never did any of those things with Gertie, but to still be able to feel those spaces in the fibers of my body is the closest I come to knowing her physical presence. I am grateful to my Auntie, my Uncle, my Mother, and my Aunt for sharing their stories with me all these years later.

It is important for me to recognize the dynamic nature of life, of history, of experience and particularly of memory. We don’t remember linearly, but instead through sensations. We speak in concrete words about past events as facts and yet the most vivid sensations come from smells or tastes or sounds. We hold memories in our bodies. While our minds attempt to describe them, our bodies relive them.

Gertie’s body would shudder at the sound of train whistles, at the sight of freight ships with Russian letters on them, at the sound of European police sirens in TV shows, and at questions about Russia. As a young mother, my Aunt recalled sitting on the floor cutting out a pattern while Gertie lay in bed with cancer, trying one last time to ask, “Mom … what really happened in Russia?” Even then, it was too difficult for her to speak of. She took her story with her to the grave, as did everyone else who might’ve known more.

The waves of sensation that I experience when engaging this project and the research about this time in history becomes less and less about knowing their specific facts from their time in Russia and more about allowing myself to experience the sensations that wash over me. Tears stream down my face at times. I exhale weeping. Fear tightens my chest. Anxiety squeezes my shoulders. Words become trapped in my throat.

Still, I speak and acknowledge their story.

ASSUMPTIONS drawn from research:

• They stayed three years because workers were given 3-year contracts.

The USSR used both legal (persuasion and promises) and illegal measures to keep Finnish-Americans from returning to America. When the three-year contracts of the Finnish-Americans expired, they were forced to renew them, “as they hadn’t given an preliminary warning about their intention to leave.” Thus a second term started and, when that ended, those who hadn’t already packed their suitcases and left were tricked into taking Soviet citizenship.

- pg 71 Red Exodus by Mayme Sevander.

• We assume my great-grandfather, Heikki, was diligent about maintaining possession of their US & Finnish passports and made regular trips to apply/check the status of their application and made necessary arrangements to leave at the end of his 3yr contract.

• We assume that my great-grandmother, Edla, returned later and with a different route because she went to Finland before returning to the United States. We assumed it was because she was still a Finnish citizen and couldn’t return directly, but we don’t honestly have proof of that. It is possible that she simply visited family one last time before returning to the US.

• I assume that this time in Karelia was traumatic for our family members despite the fact that they were able to leave before the situation turned in 1937. Surviving 4 winters in insufficient housing, poor food quality, harsh physical conditions as well as potential psychological pressures like being constantly watched by authorities as well as your neighbors, being tricked into new contracts or relinquishing passports can take a toll over time.

• I assume that the veil of silence that befell them, upon their return to the US, trapped those traumas within their bodies. Their silence was rock solid.