Menu ...
Grandma was a Superwoman:
Johanna Wilhelmina "Minnie" Halmeoja
Written by Elsie Koski Waterman
Picture a lady with a wrinkled, ruddy face with a scarf tied over her head to hold her hair back. She wore a housedress with an apron over it, and she carried a pitchfork or a milk pail in her hand.
Let me tell you about this woman of the depression era who ran a farm, was township treasurer, boarded schoolteachers, in addition to being a "single parent". That was before we had heard the term "women's lib". This work was all done to keep a family of four children together, clothed, and fed. There was no such thing as AFDC or "relief" of any kind.
This feisty, determined woman had lost four babies and finally had her first one live at the age of 33. Following the birth of her daughter, she also had a son two years later and twin daughters six years after that. When the twins were six, her husband took a train to a hospital 35 miles away and never returned; he died of pneumonia. She and her husband had homesteaded in rugged Northern Michigan. Both had migrated from Finland and Sweden to this country. Her husband had earned a good living (in the standards of that day) as a woodsworker and farmer. However, knowing her limitations, she decided that she had better make an attempt to farm rather than cut wood for sale—though she did manage to keep enough cut to heat the house all winter.
At the age of 48, she began this project which was to last nearly 20 years. She took out a loan from the Federal Land Bank which was very common in those days. Many years later, as she was trying to make the payments, she was asked what she borrowed the money for, and she couldn't remember. However, this loan hung over her head for many years. Many times, it was like a scene from the old fashioned melodrama, as she scraped together enough money to make the interest payments in order to avoid foreclosure.
Things got pretty complicated. Her oldest daughter became pregnant at the age of 16, got married and returned home shortly thereafter with the baby. This woman took care of me, the baby, while her daughter went to the city to work. The son was married at the age of 17 and brought his wife home to live, and they began a family. She and the twins (who were about 12) helped to deliver the son's wife's first baby one stormy winter night, many miles from a doctor.
The boarding of schoolteachers had meant there would be books in the home for the children to read and perhaps some special tutoring. As soon as math was learned, they assisted their mother with the keeping of the township books. How an immigrant woman, who hardly spoke English, was able to handle the job is amazing. It has been said that my grandmother, Minnie Halmeoja, was the first woman to hold public office in Marquette County.
Minnie took pride in being the first one in the area to have all of her hay in for the winter (often accomplished by a weekend family reunion). Only on occasion did she pay to have the work done, such as threshing or butchering. Not only did she spend long days doing the farm work, but she also kept a house in perfect condition. Each spring, she would clean the stove pipes, often ending up with soot all over her ruddy face. The wainscoting in the kitchen would be cleaned with a knife and revarnished when needed, as would be the hardwood floors throughout the house. The pantry had two wonderful work tables where bread and bakery goods of perfection would be prepared and then baked in the wood stove. The harvest of the garden would be canned in assembly line fashion with everyone helping to sterilize the jars and fill them. The arrival of unexpected company, one might have thought to create a problem without refrigeration. But it was just a question of a trip to the cellar for a jar of home-canned meat, fruit, or vegetables.
There was time for relaxation, believe it or not. Each evening after the milking was done and supper dishes were washed, she could expect company. That might mean coffee, baked goods, and evening of cards. It had been known that in the excitement voices would raise to a high decibel and tempers would flare to the point where someone might throw the cards into the wood stove!
Finally, the children were grown and the migration from Northern Michigan to Detroit to work in the war plants began. All were to go to Detroit; the farming operation ceased, and the family gathered together to see if I, the first grandchild, would be willing to return to stay with Aiti (Mother in Finnish) to finish high school. (My mother and I had returned to live with my father and had been gone about 12 years).
This woman who had been very close to me was now beginning to grow old; I could pin her thin hair up in about eight pin curls. It was then that I learned that as you age, you can fall asleep easily. I would find her taking her afternoon nap with her glasses on and a newspaper over her face. We shared a black leather hide-a-bed in the living room near the first floor furnace so that we would not have to heat the upstairs. She snored furiously, but I got used to it. We had two wonderful years together alone in the country. She tended to the wood furnace, gardened, and played cards. She had a nervous way of stroking her apron with her right hand, and her eyes would glaze over as the family would come to visit and leave again.
It was then that she began to have her only romance after her husband's death. A neighbor man who had lost his wife would come and visit, and they would play cards or just sit and talk of the good old days.
When I left, she moved to a smaller house nearby and lived there until one day when my mother came to visit, she had to go in through a window. Aiti had had a stroke. This left her unable to speak or understand very much for the last three years of her life. Her daughters took care of her those last years. Though she couldn't talk, she always held my hand very tightly and smiled and stroked my first baby, so I knew she recognized me.
Here, in my estimation, was a superwoman before the word was coined!
Published in Above the Bridge Magazine, Fall 1994
Published in The Finnish American Reporter
Published in "New World Finn"
Menu
