FINNS: An Oral History- Keeping Services
Keeping Services - Interview with Debra (Halbedel) Johnson
FINNS: An Oral History of Finnish-Americans in New Hampshire’s Monadnock Region
Excerpted from FINNS: An Oral History... by Patricia Kangas Ktistes, 1997, all rights reserved.
Keeping Services - Debra (Halbedel) Johnson Interview
Growing up, the big difference I noticed between our family and another Finnish family in the neighborhood was that they were Apostolic Lutherans. These people were very stoic, very silent. The mother of the household was a large woman; healthy sauna cheeks, beautiful skin. And a deep, friendly chuckle. I’d go over there and try to sell magazines or something and she’d laugh because I don’t know if they even bought magazines.
Their grandchildren used to come over and stand on the edge of the property. It’s like they knew where the boundary was and they would silently stand there seriously, for hours, fascinated. Like Children of the Corn or something. I’d say “Hi. Want to play?” No way! I don’t remember them saying a word. If anything, they just turned and walked away. I took it to mean that they were disapproving of us, but they might have been just watching. They observed my brother and me until we were 10 or 12. We probably ran around screaming and being horrible.
The biggest mystery to us as teenagers was what the Apostolics did in that church all day long. We couldn’t imagine what they would talk about in there every week, even twice a week or more. There would be cars outside the church all day. It kind of gives the impression there were weird rites going on in there. You don’t picture people gabbing, having fun, and having coffee because God knows other Protestant New Englanders don’t have any fun in church. Maybe that’s changing.
In college I had a friend, a young Apostolic woman. We were studying history and I asked her, “Why do you guys keep to yourselves so much? And what do you do in that church all day?” She didn’t mind. She thought the church was wonderful and calming. The minister tells them how to live their lives. If they have a problem, they’re told how to straighten it out. And they don’t intermingle with outsiders because they figure, “Why bother? You stick with familiar people; you know what you’re getting into. There are no surprises.”
I never saw an Apostolic woman go to college before. I think her reason was something like, “to get a job you have to get some educational basis,” and to me that in itself is unusual because usually Finn women stay home and raise the children. She showed absolutely no resentment of this type of expectation. The guy she was engaged to was very Finn, very Apostolic, but she was still getting an education. She said the church is awesome, they answer your questions, they make you feel comfortable, they make you know that life is in control. I asked her again why they stick together and she said it’s just because they have the same viewpoints, the same goals. But I felt comfortable with her. And she felt comfortable enough to come home and study with me.
Although as much as outsiders have a tendency to put them down, the Apostolics stick by each other for the most part unless one is a horrible sinner, doing booze or drugs. It just seems like Finnish people are more outgoing if they’re not Apostolics. I’m not sure why; I can’t really say it’s reserve. What is it? I don’t know how to describe it. It’s not stern. It’s not tense. It’s just a kind of stoicism. Sober.
A FINNS outtake by the author:
Here's a 1997 account from my sister Marjorie (Marge) A. Kangas (1953-2023), whom I also interviewed for the FINNS oral history thesis. I didn't have time to include every interview in the thesis because in the spring of 1997 I was on academic deadline (I had to meet it or not graduate.) But readers might find occasional outtake interviews to be interesting.
The setting:
Marge’s calico cat Beans sits on a chair at her owner's kitchen table, eyes the whirring tape recorder, and—whiskers twitching—watches the interview. Marge has always been an animal lover and has cared for a succession of cats and dogs whether she resided in Arizona, California, Pennsylvania, or back home in New Hampshire. The interview took place at her apartment in Peterborough, NH.
Marge speaks as follows:
My earliest awareness of being Finn was that our family went to the Independent Apostolic Lutheran song services instead of a regular church. Also, we had Apostolic Lutheran kids at school who weren’t allowed to watch films, even though the films were educational and an everyday part of the curriculum. As young children, we called the Apostolic children the ‘Sin Kids’ because sin was their chief topic of conversation when talking to others who didn’t belong to their church.
And even though we belonged to a church that had the same origins as theirs, and even though we were cousins to many of the Apostolics through the Somero side of our family, the Sin Kids didn’t accept us as Finns. When we returned to school in September with a little bit of chipped nail polish left on our fingertips from the annual [New Ipswich] Children’s Fair, the Sin Kids said we were going to hell. If you curled your hair, you were going to hell; or watched TV, you were going to hell; or listened to Rock and Roll [music], you were going to hell. Anything like that.
At the Independent Apostolic Lutheran song services, the older folks would sit in a circle and a preacher who had arrived from Michigan or Minnesota would preach a sermon in Finn, then English. Usually the preacher was Matt Reed. I heard stories about Matt—he was hunting with a friend and a grizzly bear killed his friend—out in Minnesota, I think.
Then they’d sing English or Finnish hymns. Our mother’s aunt would rejoice and get up from her chair, clapping her hands, and she terrified me. Some of these Finn tunes that we were singing would get pretty lively and that’s when she’d get up and shout and dance.
I’d say to my mother, “Why is Auntie doing that?”
And my mother would say, “Oh, she’s happy because she knows she’s going to go to heaven.”
This usually happened just before refreshments. My mother’s aunt would then hug all the kids within reach. I think she just got high—high on religion. And at the time I thought it was embarrassing—I was worried about her hugging me. My mother and father never danced, so to see someone else doing it was totally foreign—we just weren’t used to these open displays of emotion. Also, dancing was one thing the Sin Kids had said would send you to hell.
However, I thought attending song services far better than having to go to a regular church because you got to eat, for one thing. You got to run around with the other kids until you were exhausted. We’d get all hot and sweaty outside and then come into the kitchen and have tuna-fish sandwiches. And, of course, there was coffee. To this day, whenever I smell coffee brewing, it smells like tuna-fish sandwiches to me. When I took a psychology course in college, they told me I had a food fixation because I was always drawing pictures of sandwiches.
Some Finns held church services in the Central School building for a while. The first time I ever went to these services was with my mother. When they came around with the collection plate, I grabbed a 50-cent piece. My mother slapped me and I put it back. I honestly did not know what the collection plate was for.
But soon after that, we started going to Our Redeemer Chapel [Missouri Synod Lutheran]. There, everything was church: Vacation Bible School, Sunday School, Luther League. Assemble Horns of Plenty, go Christmas caroling, Ladies’ Guild. Easter—being dragged out at the crack of dawn or even before that to go to a sunrise service. Plus we had to sing at these sunrise services.
One of the unspoken rules was that you don’t go into church smiling—don’t let anyone think you’re enjoying this. Our mother always played the role of self-appointed church truant officer. I don’t know how she managed to take all this stuff in—she’d be looking at what so-and so’s doing and notice that so-and-so didn’t make it to church this Sunday or so-and-so’s biting their nails.
I considered Sunday School very depressing because it was always about Christ being whipped and put to death. Sometimes I thought the pastor was Jesus—it seemed he took it all so personally. In the Bible, it seemed to me that Christ sometimes gave people some very short answers—it sounded like He’d cut someone off.
In Sunday School, the instructors were talking about this wonderful, loving man, but sometimes He just seemed to say, “Aaaah—go get some sleep or something.”
I brought this to the pastor’s attention and he had to think about that one—it was the first time he didn’t have an answer ready.
Many long hours of sitting in the Missouri Synod Lutheran church taught me how to daydream because, after Sunday School, we ran upstairs to the sterile pews for another hour of services. We’d have to get up and sing—we didn’t memorize Hail Mary’s but we had Glory Be’s and other things to say over and over.
And then we’d finally get to sit down for the sermon. I’d look at the flies—they’d roll over on the floor and kick their legs. I’d practically be in outer space by the time the sermon stopped. Naturally kids are going to think of something entertaining because they can’t tolerate the boredom of sitting still.
Yes, Greenville. Some nuns were good but many were mean. You had to pay attention to the teacher or she became upset with you. Talking while she was teaching meant getting your mouth taped shut with white tape. I never experienced the tape but many in my class did.