FINNS: An Oral History- Keeping Services

Keeping Services - Interview with Walter Aho

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 - Walter Aho  

My grandfather Emmanuel Aho lived in New Ipswich, down in Smith Village. None of his  children remained in the church and the greater part of my aunts and uncles were alcoholics, including  my Dad. My Uncle Ted remembered when he [Emmanuel] was working on a water pump and things  weren’t going too good. He was getting frustrated and said, “Boy, I almost forgot my Christianity  here.” I had asked him [Ted] if he thought his dad believed what he preached or did they think it was  hypocrisy when they saw him in everyday life. My uncle was trying to show me that his dad thought  about his religion even when frustrated and put it into use.  

When I really look at it, though, I think the mother’s influence on the child is so, so important.  And my grandmother just ‘was.’ She was raised in extreme poverty and ate ground-up tree bark in  Finland because there was no food. So consequently, money meant everything to her and survival was  the most important thing. I doubt that any of my aunts and uncles got a hug, even when infants. I  thought maybe that was the source of their alcoholism.  

My Mom died when I was 11 months old and my dad didn’t remarry. I was taken care of by  my sisters and aunts. I was probably four-and-a-half when my dad went in the Army. He was in the  National Guard and went active, training troops for duty in World War II.  

When I was halfway through the first grade, I moved up to Ashby to Frigard’s. And I lived  there for two years and my Dad got discharged from the Army. I went back to live with him and he got  married about six months later and that didn’t work out. My uncles, my Dad: when they got drunk,  they were violent. They loved to fight. They’d beat up their wives. So my stepmother had enough of it  and left.  

Every year when school was out I said, “I want to go back up to Ashby to spend the summer.”  So that’s what I’d do. I’d spend the summer at Frigard’s, and in the fall I’d call my Dad and say, “Can  I stay here and go to school?” And he’d say, “Nope. You’ve got to come back home.” So from the  nice, fresh country air, I’d go sit on the porch in the city. In September you still get some oppressive  heat and the stifling air and exhaust. I hated the city.  

When I started junior high school, I used to run a paper route with one of my friends. And we  had gotten a hold of some spray paint; aerosol cans had just come out. So we decided that we’re going to beautify the city. We painted the plaque on the Rollstone Boulder and the plaque on the fountain in  the park and my brother was on the junior police force, which was a euphemism for kids that squeal on  other kids. And I came home with a spray can and he was investigating. I became the prime suspect.  

They brought me down to the police station and questioned me and said, “Alright. When did  you do it?” I said, “Day before yesterday…” They said, “What time?” “Three o’clock.” “Three in the  morning?” “No. Three in the afternoon.” We did it while my friend was on his Fitchburg Sentinel  route. We went down to the Sentinel, picked up the papers, and as we were going, we were stopping  and spraying. The police pictured us to be clandestine vandals and we were two dumb kids. It came  out in the front page.  

Then I spent the summer in Ashby. That fall when I called and said, “I want to stay here and  go to school,” my father said, “Well, you’re starting to get into too much trouble down here. Maybe  you’d better.” Frigard’s to me was a combination of the atmosphere, the people, the country. I mean,  the contrast between having an alcoholic dad and a stepmother and living in the city and having two  Christian people living in the country was just too much.  

When I first went there, we went berry picking. I saw this sawdust pile and got all excited. I  jumped in the middle and it was a red-ant hill. And I had red ants crawling all over me. Mrs. Frigard  [Annie] said something in English. I was six years old and I was horrified. I said, “Don’t do that!” She  said, “What?” I said, “Don’t start talking English! You’re going to end up being a drunkard and  everything!” because I thought English-speaking people were those kind and Finnish people were all  good people.  

Annie would kick the dog every time it was on the back step in her way and then she would  bawl her eyes out when the dog got sick. I remember looking at her and shaking my head and saying,  “First you’re kicking it, now you’re bawling over it. So which is it?” She’d do the same thing with me.  But when I got to be 16 years old, it just got to be too much. We’d sit and look daggers at each other  for no reason, so I had to get out of there.  

Semmi Frigard was a very, very compassionate man. He was an illegitimate child and so was  his wife. He really didn’t know his mother; he was raised by his grandmother. He had half-brothers by  different fathers. But his grandmother was a Christian lady and she raised him and taught him about God and, being a very sensitive kid, it meant a lot to him. When Semmi came to this country, he and  Annie Tähti got married and lived in Dublin. He wasn’t a Christian then and neither was his wife. She  started attending church services. My grandfather Emmanuel used to go up there to Dublin to preach,  mostly in homes. My dad remembers going up there, riding on a buck board; with a horse; bundled up  in furs, to Niemela’s or Korpi’s farm to keep services.  

Emmanuel was invited once to go to the Congregational church in Fitchburg on Elm Street to  preach to a little group of Finnish people in the basement on a weeknight, and this was fairly late in his  life. So I went down and we sat there and he spoke to us and I listened to him and I was amazed. He  didn’t single out anybody. He didn’t distinguish between churches, between anybody. It was like the  rain falling on the just and the unjust. I sat there and said, “How does he do that? How can he do that?”  He was a gifted man.  

I listened to him and said, “What is it that makes his preaching so effectual? Why is it  different?” And I came to the conclusion that when he spoke of faith, he spoke of what he needed  himself. And because he was able to believe, then it encouraged others to believe. It wasn’t so much  saying they needed it as saying that he needed it.  

I remember when Hank Williams was popular. I couldn’t believe it when I found out he had  only sung for three-and-a-half years. He wrote his own songs and he felt a lot of the things that he was  singing. I think the same thing is true in preaching or anything else. I remember Semmi Frigard  making that comment; those Finns had a tremendous amount of wisdom. He said, “A man can speak  or preach anything that he wants to and it won’t affect or offend anyone as long as he doesn’t believe it  himself.”  

 I remember Semmi telling me about how he became converted. The biggest thing with him is  language. Having been in the Merchant Marine and being a Finn, he was swearing constantly, and he  said Christians can’t go around swearing. So he had to get rid of that swearing business before he ever  could think about being a Christian. His wife started going to church and during the nights, she’d be  tossing and turning and restless and she’d say, “I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”  

And he said, “I knew what was the matter with her, but I wouldn’t tell her. She was going to  those services and sitting right in the front seat.” She had never been exposed to any of that as a child. 

He said he tried to go for just one day and keep his language clean, but couldn’t. He was at services  one time and my grandfather was speaking and Semmi felt, ‘This is my last chance. I’m going to see if  I can catch Emmanuel by himself and talk to him and I’m going to confess all my sins.’  

So he kept watching. Emmanuel was always with somebody else. Then Semmi got distracted,  and when he turned around, he saw Emmanuel going out the back door. Semmi panicked and figured,  ‘This is it!’ and went running out the back and had it all planned; his whole speech. But he was very  emotional, so he went and got hold of Emmanuel’s sleeve and tugged on it and he was sobbing and  couldn’t say anything. Emmanuel just turned around and said, “Believe that all your sins forgiven in  the Name and Blood of Jesus.” Semmi said, ‘There went my wonderful plan.” He said he’s still trying  to live that one day as a Christian and still can’t do it though he did overcome his swearing.  

When I’ve been out in Michigan, I’ve gone sometimes to nursing homes and talked to older  Finns, and it’s amazing how many of them were converted at my grandfather’s services. This one guy  Bill Kukas was out here for church conventions one time. He was sitting at a lunch table and I went  and sat down and was introduced as Emmanuel Aho’s grandson. Bill Kukas said, “Let me tell you  what happened to me. I was born and raised as a Christian, and I didn’t just happen to fall from faith or  backslide. I knowingly and willingly just left it. I knew what I was doing. I got married and later on  Emmanuel came out to Minnesota and he was keeping services. So I told my wife, ‘Let’s go.’ So we  went and I was sitting in the back and listening, and he started talking about how good God was and  how good Christ was.  

 Some people just stood up and started praising God and rejoicing and before I knew it, I got  up and was going to start praising. And then I remembered I wasn’t a Christian. I sat down real quick.  That puzzled me. A couple of days later I went and asked this Christian man, ‘A strange thing  happened. I was at some services the other night and I was going to stand up and start praising God  and I wasn’t even a Christian. Why would I do that?’  

And the guy said, ‘Oh that was the Father’s kiss, which he gave to his prodigal son. He just  wanted you to know His heart hadn’t changed toward you.’ And when he understood that that was the  kind of a God we had, he was able to be converted. My grandfather’s preaching would affect people like that. Both his and Semmi Frigard’s  preaching; no-one could enter the room without being affected by it, I don’t care who they were. It  wasn’t the words they were saying. You can’t even describe it; it was so all-encompassing that you  could almost feel it. I haven’t seen or heard that for years.

[Next - Keeping Services - Lorna (Niemela) Letourneau]