3rd Annual Spring Coffee Table
A Finnish Mama Event - May 31, 2025
Finnish Mama
Adrianna Stefanko is the “Finnish Mama”. She introduces herself on her website.
My name is Adrianna. I’m the wife of a very talented carpenter and stay-at-home mother to three beautiful boys. I live in Fitzwilliam and I’m the fourth generation of my family to be born and raised in New Hampshire. Proud of my Finnish roots, I taught myself how to make Nisu as a gift to my great grandmother. I’m passionate about baking, gardening, creating, homesteading, Jesus and serving my community.
The Coffee Table
During the Pandemic when we all felt separated from the community, Andrianna came up with the idea of following a Finnish tradition of having a “coffee table” as a way to bring the community together. It was a successful undertaking and she continued the tradition. These photos were taken at the 3rd annual event which was held on May 31, 2025 at The Club at Oak Hill in New Ipswich, NH.
Nissu and More
Finnish Music & Dance
Finnish music was provided by Christine Anderson, Cedwyn Morgan, Gloria Foster and John Rosenfelder
Revontulet Dance Troupe
Another use for Birch Bark
Not just for canoes
James Roger Diaries Entries - 1908
26th May 1908 (Tuesday)
Warm and sunny. Nice S.W. breeze. David on roads with Royce. I cut and trimmed lots in cemetery. Got letter and violets from Hamish. Saw four snapping turtles sunning themselves on some boards in cemetery pond. Small bird has nest in the honeysuckle on Corbin lot. James B. Davis had a literary assembly at his house tonight.
27th May 1908 (Wednesday)
Warm & sunny. West wind. David on roads got finished today. I finished my lots in Cemetery and cut grass in front of our house. F. Whittemore telephoned for 40 chickens on Friday. Mrs. W. Preston & Effie practicing on piano in hall this afternoon for Patriots night at Grange tomorrow night.
28th May 1908 (Thursday)
Dull, threatening rain wind east. Fair cool day. David at Walker’s in forenoon. Hardy’s in afternoon. I filled John Preston’s vase and planted asters &c in our front garden. Got vestry ready for sewing circle and filled hall lamps for Grange tonight. Got letter from Jessie.
29th May 1908 (Friday)
Warm day. David and Jim & I planted our field potatoes, about 6 bushels. Mr. Kimball filled his vase.
30th May 1908 (Saturday)
Warm and muggy, with heavy torrential rains at night. Memorial days, the usual performance but tamer every year. Mr. Gale gave a very fine address. Jim went to meet Hamish at night.
31st May 1908 (Sunday)
Fair and bright till 5 pm when thunder began. With showers. Mr. Peacock preached on Belshazzar’s feast. A kind of missed sermon. Evolution, Biology and Religion. S.S. after present 7. Mrs. Huckins telephoned this morning to lady in Boston, about her rooms. Jim brought in a Jack in the pulpit flower from Barrett woods. C.E. Mrs. Wheeler leader Topic: “Alaska missions”. A fairly good attendance.
This has been a good growing month – grass is looking well, and fruit flourish and very abundant. But grain is getting to an exorbitant price. Armour & Pathear having wheat corn cornered.
1st June 1908 (Monday)
Fair ind W to NW. cool. David took Hamish to Depot and brought paint, grain &c. Then ploughed at Cowdrey Place a few hours and harrowed in upper field. I bought some stocks – verbenas & Coleus and planted them and sowed some beet, onion and beans. L.M. P. Hardy gone to Topeka today.
Contra Dancing in New Hampshire: Then and Now
presented by Dudley Laufman
Saturday, June 7 at 1:30 p.m.
New Ipswich Library (6 Main Street)
Since the late 1600s, the lively tradition of contra dancing has kept people of all ages swinging and sashaying in barns, town halls, and schools around the state.
Contra dancing came to New Hampshire by way of the English colonists and remains popular in many communities, particularly here in the Monadnock Region.
Dudley Laufman brings this tradition to life with stories, poems and recordings of callers, musicians, and dancers, past and present. Live music, always integral to this dance form, will be played on the fiddle and melodeon.
In a career that spans over seven decades, Dudley Laufman is recognized around the country for his artistry as a folk musician and dance caller. While working on a NH dairy farm in the late 1940s, he was introduced to contra dancing and immediately smitten. Mentored by Ralph Page, a master caller from Keene, Dudley called his first dance in 1948. By 1965, he was known throughout New England and was invited to perform at the Newport Folk Festival. In 1999, Laufman performed at the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival in Washington, DC. Other awards soon followed, including the NH Governor’s Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement (2001) and the Country Dance and Song Society of American Lifetime Achievement Award (2007). In 2009, he earned the National Heritage Fellowship, the highest honor for traditional artists. A poet and song writer as well, he co-authored Traditional Barn Dances and has recorded several CDs. A resident of Canterbury, Laufman regularly performs with the Canterbury Orchestra, which under his leadership has produced five recordings.
Generously supported by the Stearns-Burton Lecture Fund, this program is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.
Thanks for this comprehensive accounting of Town and area activities both then and now. Interesting that someone picked a Jack in the Pulpit plant from the forest for one occasion. That picking of such flowers was not permitted when I was a Girl Scout in NI way back in the 1960s. I wonder when they became protected.
The Finnish Mama sells a lot of her Nisu at my mother in laws farmstand on Number 4 Rd. here in Fitzwilliam. I have eaten loafs of it as my mother in law uses it as a payment method of fixing stuff, mowing and snow removal.