The Finnish Community - Saunas and Bakeries
New Ipswich Historical Society
New Hampshire Times - Feb 6, 1980
The Finnish Community - written by Steve Taylor for the New Hampshire Times.
Part 4
The second generation of Finns in the New Ipswich area grew up speaking Finnish in the home and English at school and in commerce, says John Preston, a lifelong New Ipswich resident and historian.
"When the parents died, the use of Finnish usually ceased. My father was a banker here and he had to learn some Finnish to do business. Actually, he got by with just knowing how to count in Finnish, because when they saw him they knew it was to talk money," "Preston says.
Toivo Heiskanen is still fluent in Finnish, and he frequently talks Finnish with older people he knows in the area. His knowledge of the language has helped him when he has traveled to Finland. Around the offices and shops of Seppala and Aho Construction, New Ipswich's dominant commercial enterprise, it is common to overhear conversations in Finnish and even to observe a young boy of three or four visiting his dad being addressed in Finnish.
The most noticeable sign of the Finnish presence around New Ipswich is, of course, the family names on mailboxes and business signs, but a more distinctive imprint has been left by three-quarters of a century of Finnish carpentry: Any home built or owned by a Finnish family is going to be equipped with a sauna.
"Finns build a sauna before they build their kitchen cabinets," says Walter Ketola, an executive at Seppalo and Aho.
"The Finn says you mustn't build your kitchen cabinets with dirty hands, so you build the sauna first thing."
The sauna plays a central role in family life of Finnish people. Wednesday and Saturday nights are regular sauna nights for many families.
In the New Ipswich area the Finns have tended to build fairly elaborate saunas, equipping them with both wood and electric heating units and also with showers. (No one does the bit about jumping into a snowbank or icy pond after a sauna, or at least they don't around New Ipswich.)
Finnish people say it's impossible to get really clean in anything but a sauna. "A shower bath is like a sponge bath. You've got to have a sauna to be clean," they'll say.
American Finns tend to take their sauna baths in separate sexual groups, unlike the practice in the old country where males and females all bathe together. Word has it that some Yankee and French families who have bought homes previously owned by Finnish people take sauna baths in bathing suits, something that amuses the Finns.
Finnish cuisine tends toward hearty fare. Outdoor work requires more calories, and since Finns have always preferred outdoor work, their diet al- ways included plenty of dairy products, breads and pastry.
Elmi Aho runs the region's leading Finnish bakery, and her Rindge enterprise provides a variety of authentic breads, rolls and other baked items that are sold in retail stores in the area.
In the past generation there has been considerable movement back and forth between the New Ipswich area Finnish community and the Finnish communities of upper Michigan and Minnesota. Numerous marriages have united New Hampshire men and women with partners from the upper Mid- west Finnish areas.
Actually, the movement back and forth goes back to the 1920s when mining and forest jobs diminished in the Midwest and displaced workers came east looking for factory employment, while farmers in New Hampshire headed west to find better land and more favorable cropping conditions.
Walter Ketola grew up in upper Michigan, obtained a master's degree and was a school principal there. He worked in Minnesota for a time before coming to New Ipswich to join Seppala and Aho Construction.
The back-and-forth movement is just further manifestation of the extended-family tradition of the Finnish community in general and the Apostolic Lutheran church in particular, he points out.
[The End - written by Steve Taylor, 1960]
James Roger diary entries
24th September 1912
Dull, cloudy day; wind easterly. David teaming at Barretts’ in forenoon and pulling apples at Spoffords’ in afternoon. I pulled some grapes in morning and wrote to Jean as tomorrow is her birthday. Went to mail and filled up hollow on the Chickering lot in afternoon. Went to Jim David’s for vinegar in morning. Read his poem on Clinton Fair 1911.
I wonder how many Finns in New Ipswich were actually interviewed by Steve Taylor re sauna for his story. I know of Finns who rolled in the snow after sauna. The practice was especially popular among adolescents when there was sufficient privacy, and enough space, outside the sauna building. Didn’t want parents or those of the opposite gender watching. You’d do it on a dare--like sitting on the higher sauna bench to see how long you could tolerate the temperature extreme.
I have to agree that I feel much cleaner after a sauna and even more so a steam bath. I have a long time goal of visiting a true Turkish bath. On my bucket list. I'm not sure a about rolling around in the snow. I'll try anything once.