The Finnish Community - United Cooperative Farmers

New Ipswich Historical Society

New Hampshire Times - Feb 6, 1980

The Finnish Community - written by Steve Taylor for the New Hampshire Times

Part 3

In the fall of 1926, eight men and women met at Antti Anttila's farm in New Ipswich to discuss their outrage over the blueberry marketing situation. Present were Antti and Lovisa Anttila, Lempi and Hugo Flinkstrom, Antti Kettu, Frank Raitanen, Harry Nelson and David Leel.

They decided at that meeting to form their own cooperative to market their berries to try to capture some of the money the Boston dealers were making off the New Ipswich blueberry crop. Raitanen later recalled that the original group, which called itself the New Ipswich Farmers Association, spent a lot of time that winter seeking new supporters of its project in other nearby towns. As a result of the group's efforts, locals sprouted in Westminster, Hubbardston and Ashburnham, Mass.

In November 1927, delegates from these four locals gathered at Pyrintola Hall in New Ipswich to organize United Cooperative Farmers as a blueberry merchandising facility. Its marketing efforts paid off handsomely for the membership, and in a short time the new cooperative was moving into the processing of feedstuffs for farmers and other marketing ventures, primarily in eggs and poultry.

The cooperative reached into Maine and Connecticut to establish branches in the 1930s and continually expanded its operations through the 1940s. In 1952 it rescued poultrymen from predatory processors by starting up its own dressing plant.

All through these years United Cooperative Farmers continued to be led by Finnish farmers. The cooperative expanded its base of operations in Fitch- burg, consolidated what had been 11 local associations into one regional cooperative and eventually got out of the berry business.

United Cooperative Farmers is now one of the largest feed manufacturers in New England, still functioning as a true cooperative exactly as its founders intended back in the 1920s. A farmer buys a share in the cooperative and this entitles the farmer to a share of profits at the end of each year, based upon the amount of his purchases during the year.

And people of Finnish descent continue to play a major role in the management of the cooperative. The list of directors and management is still dotted with names such as Palo, Hangas, Jarvi, Kataisto, Rasi, Saari, Riikonen and Ojanen.

The New Ipswich Finnish community also had a political club back in the 1920s, and it wrote a chapter in the town's history that was later to be considered an embarrassment by most Finns, although today it is scarcely recalled except by old-timers such as Toivo Heiskanen who will respond with a derisive snort at the mention of the matter.

Many Finnish immigrants to the United States came with a fascination for socialism, and their interest in the subject surfaced wherever they settled, whether it was in southern New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Brooklyn, upper Michigan or Minnesota.

Advocacy of socialistic principles came to be a hallmark of the New Ipswich political club, and for a majority of Finns in the community these ideas ran counter to what they considered to be their own self- interest. They disassociated themselves from the political club and rejected its rhetoric.

Communism was another ideology that showed up in many Finnish political clubs, and the Communists even had their own meeting hall in nearby Ashby.

Finns today say that the Communists of the 1930s even tried to group under the umbrella provided by the Apostolic Lutheran church.

[To Be Continued]

James Roger diary entries

23rd September 1912

Fair, cloudy afternoon; wind southeasterly. David cutting grass at Dan Brown’s for Hardy and harrowing in incubator field in afternoon; also pumping at Newcombs’. I played golf in forenoon with Phil Taylor who was 3 up on 12 holes. Ingerson of Ashby & lawyers had long conference today at the scene of his accident. Got letter from Hamish and papers from Scotland