The Pioneer Finnish Home

Published by Finnish American Historical Society of the West

P.O. Box 3515, Portland, Oregon 97208 WALTER MATTILA, Editor

incorporated december 6, 1962

MAY 1971

PORTLAND, OREGON

VOL. 6 NO. 2

SPECIAL PIONEER EDITION

Thu, issue brings out Old Country idealism in Erik and.]ohanna Lindgren which bloomed even in their ax hewed home in the Nehalem wilds. It is now preserved at Cullaby lake. As their picture suggests, the Lindgrens had the wilderness love of the Finnish epic Kalevala in their blood. (Gearhart Wuori photo)

THE FOREST HOME AND ITS HEWERS

By Walter Manila

A remarkable ax hewed home with a smooth shave, built by a pioneer in the Nehalem river wilds out of big cedar logs, survives today in its second resting place near Cullaby lake, west of Astoria. The cedar roof of that five room dwelling with large attic has never leaked and its walls remain windproof. It was saved from destruction at the hands of new forest invaders by civic minded guarding angels of master axmanship. If you examine the rescued building closely you will find more than well hewed boards and planks and timbers put together smartly with scarcely a nail. Like many others, you will be impressed by extraordinary craftsmanship that flourished in a deep forest where most log cabins were crudely constructed.

And like every one else, you will wonder what inspired such building art in the wilds.

The best preserved of Oregon's ax fashioned homes, the sound and sturdy dwelling was on the verge of going up in smoke when its guarding angels got busy. They decided it wasn't possible to safeguard that stately residence and its large sauna, likewise made of big planks, in the Nehalem wilderness on Soapstone creek. Those buildings had to migrate -- first on trucks in pieces to a Clatsop county warehouse in Seaside and from there the house pieces were hauled for reassembly at Cullaby lake and the sauna pieces were to follow.

That retreat from the forest had to be rushed before a new site could be obtained and prepared. The home and sauna were menaced in their wilderness seclusion by the thrust of a modern logging road right into their homestead's little clearing of several acres, a garden-like opening in dense alders, maples, willows, hemlock spruce and fir. In addition to trucks and loggers, the new road brought in hunters, anglers, picnickers and young wanderers. They revived life in the delightful green-

Hamlet pioneers at county road building, armed with rifle for game. Bearded man in center is Erik Lindgen; his son, Emil, eating home-made hardtack on tool shelter. (From Alfred C. Jackson collection furnished by Carle ton Appel o).

wood haunt which had been vacated by its homesteaders for more than a generation.

Many of the newcomers began stripping cedar from the homestead's several buildings for firewood. At first their camp fires were confined to the frontyard, but in wintry weather they burned lustily on the wooden cedar floor of the living room.

A neighbor’s son, William Merila, was employed for a year on the Lindgren home, working with its master. Merila, now retired in Brownsmead, is shown in front of 42 inch wide plank in the home.

That exposed a cellar and its cedar walls burned.

Even before these new people came, a squatter lived in the owner vacated house and gradually chopped up the little farm’s barn of cedar slabs into firewood which always burned briskly. He claimed the homestead had been left to him by its wonderful axman and his wife of needlework and weaving artistry when they left to die in civilization. By the time the State Department of Forestry had the logging road meandering on the shoulders of Soapstone creek, the squatter had given up lawing for the homestead and rustling for dry cedar firewood. The last barn boards were snatched by others for erecting a sleeping shelf in the pioneer log cabin of the Oregon Historical Museum in Portland.. It was built by master axmen of The Finnish Historical Society of The West.

Less than half a century ago, the trim residence now standing on the lake shore was one of perhaps a hundred homestead dwellings in the rain forest of western Clatsop and western Tillamook counties.

Almost every one of them has disappeared and the sites of many are covered by new growth where conifers thrive better than anywhere else in the world. In contrast to numerous Nehalem valley log structures fading into lusty green, the hewed plank home at the end of the new logging road was well preserved and so was the sauna when they were suddenly exposed to spreading camp fires.

The surrounding fences, however, were settling into invading green. The squatter had planted young fruit trees which he protected against browsing elk and deer by making wooden rail barriers out of barn timbers with his ever handy ax. But the new campers cut them up for firewood and the tender apple and other young trees lost their leaves and died. The first guarding angel acted just in time after the logging

road began populating the picturesque break in dense woods with campers who spared only a curious outdoor toilet of cedar slabs in their ripping off firewood.

That first friendly spirit to be concerned with shielding the threatened buildings was a Portland architect who taught architecture in Portland State University, Associate Professor Charles Gilman Davis. On a trip to the Oregon seashore in 1966, he was handed publicity on the proposed trucking in of a large pioneer house from the Nehalem to give tourists something to see in Wild West axmanship. Paul Bunyan's Oregon hangout had been discovered.

Davis was intrigued by the spirited description of the future tourist attraction.

Its masterly construction was well worth inquiring into. The veteran architect found the new logging road and learned that rainfall was heavy and frequent in the Nehalem basin and that bare spots of soapstone were impassable in a car except in dry weather. He also traveled a hard surfaced road to Soapstone lake and took a brush smothered trail from there to the vacated farm by the creek. And he came upon a partly brushed over path down the creek from the county road which ran to Hamlet.

When Davis reached the homestead clearing, he was also impressed with a cottagelike guest home of cedar boards; a plank walled sauna of the largest size with a woodshed in front; and a briar covered heap of cedar boards to which the barn had been reduced. But the most skillful work stood out in the family house, forty feet long and twenty four feet wide with a full attic. An incredible amount of hewing had gone into that large structure without a stick of sawmill lumber. Who would expend such great effort ?

Former Soapstone creek neighbors recently met in Astoria; from left, Mrs. Senja Henrys of Brownsmead, whose brother, William Merila, helped Lindgren build the fine home; and Mrs. Anna Kukkola of New Port Richey, Florida, the daughter of Erik and Johanna Lindgren. Copied from Columbia Press photo. At right, Lindgren daughter soon after she was employed in Astoria. Photo from Mrs. Ivan Jones.

The Portland architect had not seen such forest carpentering elsewhere.

He noticed two experts had been on the job; one left a razor smooth finish on planks and boards; and the other slight prints. Their skills included "fishtailing" of corner planks to perfection; close fitting of partition wall planks into side walls; and cutting of each outside wall plank at a cant to keep Oregon rain out.

No cracks showed up anywhere despite the fact that the still imposing residence, its windows gone and thin slab door warped, hadn't been looked after for a generation except by firewood-short guests. The boards of the roof were rain tight as ever. Its eaves were monuments to pioneers getting much done with axes; they were both one-piece, forty-two foot timbers gouged out for rain runoff, no knotholes or twists in the choice cedar. One corner of the house was settled a bit though it rested on a two-foot high boulder. That stone had likely been brought with the several others from the creek bed like the sand for the home-made bricks of the chimney. Not until the dwelling was dismantled for the ride to safe surroundings was it noted that a few "store"nails had been used.

Guests were a joy to the Lindgrens and they left happy memories of their entertaining. Top photo from Clara Kemhus, Seaside , as printed in Columbia Press, and lower from Gearhart Wuori. Both show guests with their hosts.

The long and wide wall planks, however, were held together by wooden dowels.

All the furnishings had disappeared with every appliance, including old stove and old stove pipe. Later it was learned that the windows had been taken out by state foresters to keep tourists from becoming settlers. There was good firewood handy in the single slab door of three-foot width, but it hadn't been touched. Those who sought shelter in the splendid building had an interest in keeping out cold and rain.

Davis told his students and fellow architects about the exciting axwork. They, too, wanted the building to be protected. And, like Davis, they were curious who those masters with axes had been. The construction wasn't typical of the Oregon frontier. That long lasting roof wasn't to be seen elsewhere; and most of the building features were new to those who visited at the end of the logging road. They came again and again, bringing their children and friends to see pioneer art and to enjoy picnicking on the old homestead, surrounded everywhere by virgin forest, no pollution anywhere.

Believing as did his students and architect friends that the fascinating forest buildings belonged in the forest where they stood, Davis hoped means could be found to repair the hatchet damages and bring maintenance up to date and restore the missing furnishings and appliances. He could count on help from his students who were to be taught how to go about renovating old structures. Davis realized that policing was required to safeguard what was left and everything that was improved and whatever new was obtained to dress up the interiors. How to provide against hatchetmen and camp fires was a problem miles away from law enforcement.

But who had made those fine buildings with mainly plain axes ? Davis found no neighbors for miles and no one could tell him at service stations on the Hamlet road who had lived down Soapstone creek. There were remains of a cedar board house about a mile up the creek. Near this second abandoned homesteading nest, a part of its roof caved in on camp fire ashes, were shattered traces of other buildings, a footbridge falling into Soapstone creek, and a clearing rimmed with encroaching brush.

Davis didnft forget about that coast motel operator endeavoring to remove the

plank mansion for tourist bait. He didn't believe its architectural charms would stand out among people eating hamburgers and talking about the stock market. He inquired after former Soapstone creek settlers from the State Department of Forestry. It was managing timberlands in the creek drainage. Davis was informed that several old farms in the area were possessed late in the Depression by Clatsop county through tax foreclosure. Subsequently those tracts were included in the timber-lands turned over by the county to be supervised by the state.

Late in life, Lindgren gave up cultivating his Ka leva la beard and trimmed it to a dashing mustache. He and his wife had to leave their Kalevala retreat. They charmed people “in civi lization” as much as in the forest with solid old Finn worth that stands out in above photo provided by their granddaughter, Mrs. Ivan Jones of Cathlamet, Washington.

The homestead with the good home, the state agency reported, was patented by Erik Lindgren and the adjoining one up the creek by Simon Merila. Davis had designed houses and other buildings put up by Finnish contractors in the Portland area. They and their crews had names which made Merila sound Finnish to Davis. He had become interested in the Finnish churches of the region and was familiar with Finland's modern church architecture. Davis admired Alvar Aalto and had purchased some of the earliest furniture sold in America by the Finnish architect's firm.

All the Finnish building craftsmen of his acquaintance were handy with an ax, but they also used other tools well.

Some were expert with a broadax; that smooth shaver in proper hands hadn't been employed on the Lindgren jobs.

It was surprising that even architects assumed that Lindgren had used a broadax until they looked sharply at the razor-like ax tracks.

From the state foresters, Davis made out that the Lindgren home had escaped still another fire danger, one that few old abandoned buildings survived. It was a working rule among the foresters to get rid of all shelters in state forests which attracted any one who might cause fires to break out. Many came to this old place.

Many people attracted to the abandoned Lindgren homestead, a delightful picnicking area at the end of a new logging road, were eager to have the marvelously constructed home and other buildings preserved in their forest setting. This fond hope had to be given up. Various campers began stripping the buildings for firewood and in cold weather set fires even inside the house on the cedar floor. (Sam Foster photo)

Those forest guardians, however, had taken a fancy for the Lindgren home and sauna. Nor were they disposed to let any one run off with either without permission from Clatsop county and the state. Professor Davis dedicated himself to seeing that no such authority was granted.

Lindgren still remained no more than a Swedish name to the Portland architect who wanted to save the homesteader’s axmanship and learn why he was inspired to do such superb work in the wilds with an ax. Davis mentioned his Soapstone creek discoveries to a former Finnish weekly in Astoria, The Columbia Press, which had been coming out in English for years. Its story and picture coverage on axman Lindgren brought out that old Finnish people vividly remembered the homesteader, his wife and family, but not as Swedish ax people. Since the late Lindgren was known to have been trained in rough carpentering by masters in Finland, his friends had taken for granted he was expert with an ax. Hence the newspaper was unable to dig up much right away on ax building down Soapstone creek.

But the well received publicity led to more light. Among that readers was William Merila of Brownsmead, one of the three sons of Simon Merila, the Soapstone creek homesteader. And this William had worked with Lindgren in 1928 on that masterpiece. Merila had been a onehanded axman on the big hewing job; an accident at playing with blasting caps as a child had cost him the fingers of one hand. That circumstance explained forest humored Lindgren being quoted as having said that his castle was made by three able Finnish hands. Davis learned how that home was erected; and Merila became an enthusiastic supporter of the cause to save the achievements of the two axes.

But the architect couldn’t understand a homesteader in his sixty eighth year undertaking the strenuous labor of cutting down giant cedar trees, splitting huge logs and hewing many big planks. At that time, the homesteader’s wife, who would furnish and look after the much bigger new house, was already in her seventy third year. Their children were married and had homes of their own. And their friends were dying off. Lindgren could have but a few years left in the forest for carrying out sacks of dried cascara bark, crates of eggs and other forest farm products; and for carrying in packs of groceries. His days of earning money for taxes, groceries and medicines from county road work were already over. He was still able to do a big day’s work, but the county had turned to road building machinery which replaced his pick, shovel and mattock.

Every published recollection in The Columbia Press revealed that Lindgren had been no ordinary chopping Finn in the brush with a magnificent beard and party joviality and the finest poaching craft at hunting and fishing. He was invariably described as a forest singing bard with the noblest of beards -- just like the singing bards wore in the Finnish epic Kalevala in their forest haunts. Every friend recalled bearded Lindgren as a pleasant forest character who was most entertaining as a forest host, just like the heroes of the forest in the epic. He was recognized as a worthy kin of those big beards in the exalted verses of ancient Finns in the wilds.

Lindgren’s forest visiting friends were surprisingly varied, including well read and sophisticated individuals without ties to his fundamentalist Lutheran beliefs.

It was uncommon for one of his religious adherence to blossom out with fetching affability toward the worldly wise and rejoice in their warm friendship.

Among his close friends was Kris Wuori of Astoria. This well read businessman remained an ardent admirer of Kalevala idealism of once popular Finnish utopianism. His disappointment at not having been able to get away to a Finnish utopia on Malcolm island, British Columbia, was more than made up by his delight with visiting the bard on Soapstone creek.

He had been trained by a master tailor in Finland and advanced to a top tailor with a top tailoring firm in St. Petersburg.

Russia, before entering the Finnish customs service. Later he migrated to Portland where he rose to be tailor to mayors, U.S. senators, Ladds, Tiltons and big, two suit Finns. From the time of the Depression, Wuori developed exquisite canning of smoked sturgeon in Jeffers Gardens, near Astoria, to win such customers as Eleanor Roosevelt,

Hiram Johnson, Clatsop county commissioner, recognized pioneer craftsmanship in the Lindgren buildings should be saved. He got the public and the county interested in moving out home and sauna.

Averell Harriman, Bob Hope, cock-tailing admirals of the Pacific Fleet and other big hosts. Just to get a chance to buy the sturgeon, the admirals gave Wuori yard long models of their ships.

An early Finnish liberal, he was attracted to something spiritually lordly in Lindgren^1 s forest character which today is lost sight of by most people of Finnish descent -- love of living close to nature like the old Kalevalans did.

That widespread passion among Finns had been awakened by the rise of national culture in the Nineteenth century homeland under Russia. It got a great boost from publication of the Kalevala songs in which Finns were free and happy.

That brought on a great cultural spawn of new free Finnish music, literature, art and architecture.

A century ago, in the wake of the Kalevala*s cultural impact many Old Country Finns became interested in the simple and congenial life of the Kalevala forest people as modern industrial society grew more complex and spiritually unrewarding. At first this enthusiasm did not conflict with Finnish Lutheranism.

But after the early Socialistic Utopians preached "back to the KalevalaM and protested that the church had taken soul out of the Sermon on the Mount and the Songs of Solomon, they aroused the opposition of not only regular Lutherans but also the fundamentalists.

Unquestionably, religious Lindgren and his wife had been stimulated by utopian flare in Finnish nationalism. Like many others, they picked it up without having much education. It was in the Finnish air from the printed Kalevala, published poetry and fresh paintings that dripped with Finn.

Wuori, the banker Charles Wirkkala of Astoria and equally well read Armas Fields of Woodland, Washington, were taken by Kalevala zest in jovial Lindgren. To those friends he looked and behaved and sounded like a Kalevala bard in love with forest life. Less literary admirers regarded the forest host as the happiest of Finns without tracing his bubbling with life to the old epic well.

As long as he was on the Soapstone, Lindgren did have the appearance of having walked out of the Kalevala with ax and beard and hospitality. Nor did he lose old bard character on Astoria journeys. He told Wuori, the urbane Astorian, "even your town bread smells of gasoline. ff

The Astoria weekly's articles brought out a bard-like personality. Like the Kalevala^1 s hosts, The Columbia Press Lindgren adored old and young visitors. That is why he got word to little Gearhart Wuori when it was time to come angling in Soapstone lake. That message went out whenever the American neighbor, who chased off poachers, left home. Because Lindgren had a grander beard and a merrier voice than Santa Class, Gearhart and his fishing pals, Carl Angberg of Astoria among them, lost no time taking advantage of the friendly spirits good will.

There are people still in Seaside, Astoria, Deep River, Pendleton, Ilwaco and elsewhere who recall the merry gusto of Erik Lindgren and the delightful welcome of his pleasant wife. Their home was tastefully adorned with Kalevala homecraft from linen napkins to wall pieces of intricate knitting and weaving. The Lindgrens welcomed strangers with such warmth that two young Astorians, Albert Luukinen and Art Tilander, bound for Soapstone lake fishing in the Depression, gave up the sport to listen to the most cheerful voice they had heard in those hard times. His friendships took in an Astoria barber who devoted himself to looking after the bardfs business welfare. Even in town, the great beard awakened the respect due a Kalevalan among good Finns.

In later stories, The Columbia Press had quotations attributed to Lindgren, himself, for explaining why the big house was erected with much labor at a time when he and his wife were getting old for the wilds. He had often told his friends that he would have a forest lodge for them with good cheer as well as fish and game and berries. That dream was realized and Lindgren enjoyed its spiritual grandeur for almost ten years before he and his wife had to leave.

The love of the outdoors, however, never left him even after he trimmed the Kalevala beard to a bristling Finntown mustache. The excitement of getting to go once more on a berry picking trip proved too much for the big man's heart at an Astoria friend's home on the morning of July 1, 1938. The most bard spirited of Oregon Finns was heard no more in the land of big fish and big trees and big berries. His wife died in Deep River, Wash. , on November 8, 1943.

Lindgren was born in Tammela, a rural community in southwest Finland, on May 7, 1861. He served in the Finnish army and presumably gained some acquaintance with building skills. He took up rough carpentering after returning to civilian life. It is not known when he joined the fundamentalists who were not numerous during his youth in southwest Finland and were not yet well regarded by the state clergy and regular Lutherans. His wife, Johanna Karolina, was born in southwest Finland, too,onMay 17, 1857. This couple had a son, Emil, born in Turku, the leading town in their area, on May 25, 1889. In a sense, he was to follow in the forest life of his father by becoming the builder of what may well be called Paul Bunyan sleds -- those on which logging donkey engines were mounted for tugging and traveling; the sled runners were big logs hewed to fit logging harness. Emil died in Deep River, near his big sled making, on February 21, 1961.

Another child, daughter Anna, was born in the big Finnish center of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, on August 26, 1902. Inkeeping with an emigrant practice, the father had gone ahead to America by himself to have a home ready for his family. Three years later, after poor employment in the manufacturing town, Lindgren repeated the expedient of going ahead to provide for a home in Astoria, Oregon. He later worked in a sawmill there and once again in 1907 went ahead alone, this time into the Nehalem wilds. There he erected a steambath on his homestead claim for a family home until the first house was built on Soapstone Creek and later a barn, guest home, and finally in 1928, the hospitality house. He did not obtain final title

to the homestead until six- years after filing. Perhaps he was too taken with forest living that government red tape might have slipped his mind. He had become a citizen in 1911 which also made his wife a citizen.

The two Lindgren children attended the Hamlet school with the Merila and other children of homesteaders. Big stumps stood out in the schoolyard. Each year a new teacher boarded with the different local families, including those of Finnish emigrants. One of these women from American Civilization wrote years later in the Oregon Historical Quarterly about her experiences teaching little Finns.

Emil Lindgren got a start at making his own living after hearing about prospects for a logging job at a county fair. He later settled in Deep River where he brought up his family on a farm with extra money coming from building the giant sleds for logging engines. He put in some time on his father's big house.

The daughter, American born, Anna, now Mrs. Lindgren Kukkola, lives in New Port Richey, Florida. She, too, found employment outside -- of a very exciting kind. She was first hired as a domestic by a wealthy Astoria couple who had an early Lincoln automobile and treated the young woman from the Soapstone forest in a fine way. She recalled on a recent visit to her former Merila neighbor, now Mrs.

Thirty years after the Lindgrens left their home, it was still in fine shape, under cherry trees, and so was the summer cottage under ivy, on the left. But campers quickly wrecked the cottage after doing away with a barn. Fruit trees apparently died from somebody’s starved cattle chewing off bark. (Sam Foster photo)

Hugo Henrys of Brownsmead, that the great event of her young life was a trip in the chauffeured Lincoln over the new Lower Columbia highway to Portland where she was amazed by the big city.

Among native American residents in the Nehalem valley who recall Lindgren as a singing Finn is the big and sturdy logger, Steve Wallulis. That native American had the makings of a Kalevala hero as an ax thrower champion in his younger days at country fairs. He also shaved as part of the show with his throwing ax, cutting through Kalevala stout stubble. Wallulis related recently that Henry Hill, a Nehalem Finn of two-horse class, hauled out with his team the big planks which Lindgren hewed in the woods. That Soapstone settler never did have a horse, an animal praised in the Finnish Epic, but kept a few cattle and raised poultry. His cherry trees, back of the house, grew to towering height. He got apples and pears from lesser trees. His wife's well trimmed berry vines have become roaming brambles.

Grandly at home in forest surroundings, Lindgren was a smart figure out of the wilds as well in his last days. And he had the satisfaction of his good griend Wuori never forgetting him. After the Depression lingered on, a large paper company appeared to have acquired the tax delinquent Lindgren homestead under circumstances which Wuori as chairman of the county grand jury peered into with a fishy eye. He was formidable in probing fishy matters, having no mercy for opportunists with bright ideas. The big company took its clutch off Lindgren's Kalevala realm. When Wuori was twitted that he didn't exactly have all the law with him in the issue, he replied, "I had justice with me. "

The Lindgren children were unaware of the value of timber on their parents' homestead and did not learn in time about the taxes falling behind and the property being foreclosed on by the county for taxes. This happened to many second generation Finns who suffered from the vulture enterprise of timber companies making it impossible to recover the lost lands from the county. Clatsop county, however, stopped selling tax foreclosed timberlands to any one, even the former owners.

The newspaper articles, which brought out Kalevala bard in Erik Lindgren, did not contribute much toward Professor Davis getting the bard's house in order again. But they did arouse another guardian angel, County Commissioner Hiram Johnson.

He was a businessman in the Finnish end of Astoria and shared the Davis admiration for Lindgren construction. But just as the architect acknowledged, there wasn't much sense to restore the buildings unless they were protected from camp fires.

With the help of still another guarding angel, Edwin Niska of the Astoria Finnish Brotherhood, the county commissioner got underway a project for taking down the fire threatened home and sauna. All their many boards and planks numbered, these buildings were stored in a county warehouse in Seaside. From there, a year later, the house parts were moved to the new site, those of the sauna to follow later.

The county provided men and equipment for taking the buildings apart and for transportation plus supervision. With its guarding angel doing a lot of pleading for assistance, the Finnish Brotherhood not only had some of its own members turn out as volunteer workers for the resettlement job but also drew good workers from the Scandinavian Festival Association. Sunday after Sunday was devoted to putting the house pieces together on a county furnished foundation beside the lake.

As soon as the resettled house has police protection, it will be open to the public. Friends of the Lindgrens wish to have the pioneer home furnished in keeping with the fine taste that made it a delightful place to visit in the forest. Other people share that hope. It cannot be realized, however, without help from more friends of Lindgren idealism and craftsmanship. Money and volunteers are needed to renovate

the house and sauna, which have been under poor care for thirty years.

A fund has already been established by the Clatsop county board of commissioners for donations to keep alive what Lindgren did with a pioneer ax. Those who wish to help the cause may contribute to the "ERIK LINDGREN HOME RESTORATION FUND OF CLATSOP COUNTY," The Courthouse, Astoria, Oregon, 97103.

Some have already given. The Finnish Historical Society of The West started off with a $300 check. Individual members of the society also donated, including Mrs. Laura Shumway, 1720 S. W. Canby Street, Portland, $5.00; Helen Larsen, route 1, Box 386, La Center Washington, $5; The Reverend Anderson, 1532 Schiller Street, Alameda, California, $5; Myra E. Wilson, 1405 S. W. Park Avenue, Portland, $35; Mrs Ila Smith, Woodland, Washington, $4; Anna Puro, Woodland, Washington, $1; and Erik T. Vartianen, architect representative of Alvar Aalto, $25. iMr. Smith also gave $25 as a memorial to his late brother in law, Edwin Mattila, toward putting out this special issue of the society's publication.

A number of people have asked how they might turn over various items to be exhibited in the furnished home. The society regrets that it has not been able to act as custodian in most intances simply because it has no place to keep exhibits until they could be shown in the home. But the society did assume responsibility to look after a pair of birch bark moccasins of the kind worn in bygone Kalevala summers.

A keen admirer of Lindgren craftsmanship, photographer Sam Foster made camera trips to the Soapstone wilds and followed the ax hewed home and sauna to their new resting place at Cullaby lake. This Foster portrait shows how well the home held out against age.

Of all visitors, the abandoned Lindgren home delighted architects the most. They were fascinated by its Old Country features, exceptional construction and holding out against Oregon weather for the past thirty years without any upkeep. (Photos by Sam Foster)

They were donated for display in the Lindgren home by Mrs. David Tuomi of Portland in memory of her late husband who was a fine broadaxman in building the society's pioneer log cabin for the Oregon Historical Museum. And the society is pleased that Edward Heino of Portland and his uncle, Arno Hallbacka of Mulino, agreed to make a permanent loan to the Lindgren home of their Finnish collection, including beautiful weaving, an early hand-made copper pot, early glass, five hundred Finnish coins dating rom the Russian era, and five hundred Finnish stamps.

There was frontier American character to Lindgren that will need other preserving than refitting his home and adoring it with the home art of his wife. The big, husky and bearded Finn is still remembered by older Americans in the Nehalem as a Finnish Paul Bunyan who lived by his ax and his rifle. His carrying forest produce and groceries on his back hasn't been forgotten by the oldtimers. His not having a wagon road to his homestead is part of the big Finn legend.

Lindgren was still frontier rugged at the age of more than seventy. Gearhart Wuori recalls that when as a boy he accompanied his parents and friends on visits to the forest Finns he was hurried off more than on one occasion to get word to the missing host, as far away as Hamlet, that he had company. The big, old fellow dashed for home so fast every time that he was drinking coffee by the time the young messenger could get back.

And Walney Christopher, a retired wheat rancher at Pendleton recalls, "I can remember a Lindgren coming with his family to visit Pendleton Finns most every year. I was young then, not learning just who the Lindgrens were. But they were very fine people. I drove them around the neighbors in a one horse buggy. That Lindgren played the organ and sang with us. "

Dead for years, Erik Lindgren is nevertheless more and more with us as a living legend of a happy man with a big beard in a clean forest. He grows on us as one who appreciated a free and full life. The legendary Lindgren thrives on the joys of those who wandered down the fascinating path through almost untouched wilderness that ends in a picnic area on Soapstone creek. And that Lindgren of legend draws vitality from "forest man" lore in Nehalem timber. It keeps fresh the memory of the big bearded stalwart who farmed without a horse and carried farm and forest produce twenty five miles to Seaside and groceries twenty five miles to Soapstone creek.

That legendary Finn has crossed the "generation gap" which is wide between Finns reared in the Old Country and their fry of American bringing up. In this age of social change the legendary Lindgren is beginning to be accepted by young people of Finnish descent as a happy firm spirit who kept away from pollution, noise and stink. But he was often regarded during his lifetime by most young Astoria Finns as a droll, Old Country codger with a foreignish craving to live in the brush as though he liked it.

One of the largest private saunas, the Lindgrens had many guests in theirs and used it for smoking fish and meat. Meat drying structure at extreme right. Footbridge, at left, crosses brushed over Soapstone creek. (Sam Foster photo)

Those who formerly smiled at the bearded patriarch now drive their cars over the meandering logging road through forest stubble to reach Lindgren's garden of Eden. Their youngsters strolledalongthe Soapstone creek trail and they hike to the lake.

A part of the Lindgren scenery is gone, but his new friends don't seem to mind. The mightiest trees have been logged off and there are logging scars in that lusty forest and logging roads wind around, their snaky tracks never green. But the forest does smell of the forest. You are disappointed when you come out from this forest green into blacktop on the Hamlet highway.

The new Finnish fans of the Lindgrens' forest living have no idea that the old epic was its yeast. They have heard childish old Finns after sauna rattle off Kalevala, but they couldn't believe that those dancing verses about big magic, big battles and big beer celebrating inspired pious and sober people like the Lindgrens to live carefree in the wilds.

Very few young Finns had ever dipped into the epic in Finnish or in English.

They had enough of its Old Country fare from hearing about such nonsense as its loveliest forest maiden changing herself into a smelt-like fish to escape from having to marry a big shot magician and bard who was an old, old man.

There was dream and lift and free range in the Kalevala for the old Soapstone creek gang, but the young aren't seeking soar from that source. Not even the restless new generation-in the Old Country is sniffing the Kalevala for "kicks."

Lindgren and Wuori learned the Kalevala songs in childhood at home and at festivities and from vagabond teachers, the tramp bards and other entertainers at market fairs. Such informal education no longer exists. Nowadays dedicated teachers in Finland instruct children on the epic by "force feeding" after the youngsters have been freely feeding at home on television, radio and comics. The teachers, themselves, were "force fed" on the Kalevala and treat their students to the same pedagogy with the same results -- no more "kicks" from the epic.

What difference does it make to Finns anywhere if the Kalevala is stale fish?

If you ask the Russians they should tell you that the toughest Finn they have had to deal with was the Kalevala. Its songs did much to shape their singers into the resolute people of the Kalevala and its songs inspired composers, poets, novelists and other artists to come out with the same bracing message. But after the Finns gained nationhood their old songs stirred them less. The same thing happened among their countrymen in America. Thereafter the Kalevala sank in popularity.

So it came about that the Lindgren revival on Soapstone creek gained converts with out the help of any Kelevala "kicks."

The epic has suffered in other ways as well. In the last century when Finnish peasant children first got schooling beyond the briefest instruction by church clerks on the Lutheran catechism, many students and their parents took a fancy for practical education. That was seen as the way to improve. Singing Kalevala songs no longer rated as much. The young who migrated to America included those who believed in learning the practical to get ahead in a country of practical people. And the emphasis that the epic placed on being a singing Finn began to lose grip in a land where the Kalevala was unknown. Those practical minded Finns who became Wobblies rarely included lovers of the epic.

Americans have little opportunity to sip the Kalevala, 100 proof. The epic has been translated, not very felicitously, from the swing, imagery and culture of primitives to the English of the radio. Without some insight into those old forest people, Americans are no more likely to be enchanted by the old songs than are

the little Finns in Helsinki schools. Without some translating of its own music and magic and other glamor, the Kalevala is heavy stuff.

Those of Finnish descent in America, however, are in error when they kiss off the Finnish epic as never having meant anything to their parents except for a few cultural blowhards sniffing at the moon. The Kalevala has indeed left cultural hoof prints right in Astoria even beyond Finntown. It furnished not only a name but also much social idealism to the Kaleva Brothers and Sisters Society -- the Finnish Brotherhood -- and to the Knights and Ladies of Kaleva lodge and to Kaleva cooperatives. It came to glorious bloom in the Kaleva People's Commune on Malcolm Island in British Columbia in 1902 -- a brief heaven for those who believed in the happy and lusty living portrayed in the epic.

The Finnish word "Kaleva" is the name for the home of heroes in the Kalevala. That hangout in the forest inspired the naming of the park which a peasant born Finn, Charley Niemi, donated to Astoria. His generosity could well have got its milk from the Kalevala. The epic's spirit has come out strong elsewhere. More than half a century ago, the Finnish Brotherhood of almost the entire Pacific coast talked itself with much enthusiasm into creating a Kalevala retreat on a grandly wild homestead near near Salem. It was to be fitted out for retired Finns who hadn't had the opportunity to enjoy Kalevala life at fishing on the Columbia, slaving in canneries and logging big trees. Nature was at its best in the acquired homestead, no slashing anywhere. Its forest was more mighty than that in the land of the old bards and the salmon were bigger and the berries more abundant.

Like early forest Finns in their epic Kalevala, the Lindgrens delighted to be hospitable. A strong desire to better entertain friends induced them to build their fine log home and an earlier guest house, shown at left. A good hunter, Lindgren dried meat in the structure to the right before smoking in his big steam-bath. The well built meat drier was attacked early by campers for firewood. (Sam Foster photo)

Yet before the Finnish Brotherhood of many branches could get through the American redtape for buying a bit of Kalevala, an American Finn tempest sprung up. It was shocking to Astoria lovers of the Kalevala that the rich San Francisco lodge didn't believe in everybody helping out to provide a Kalevala home for everybody near Salem. That California branch of well Americanized Finns refused to pay for its share of the bill. The revolt led to a walkout; to this hour those rebels are still carrying on outside the grand lodge of the Kaleva Brothers and Sisters.

Long since, however, passion for the epic and its haunts has dimmed in Astoria's Finnsih West End.

The Salem dream of Social Security soured. It was soon learned by the ardent Kalevalans that they couldn't get even a caretaker to stay in their fenced paradise. Taxes had to be paid out of funds raised for something else. No retired people ever went to the Kalevala retreat in the brush where no road existed to get out to a phone, doctor or grocery. It offered nothing but pure Kalevala spirit. The loyal Kalevalans tried their best to induce the elderly to move in; they promoted a fine home for the grounds, but could not raise funds. Then they learned it couldn't be sold without heavy loss. (There were no practical businessmen in the epic.) The noble project descended from spiritual heights to fishwife censure of foul business judgement of the society's Kalevala worthies. Despite every effort to get back the funds which had been so eagerly invested in one hundred sixty acres of Kaleva, long years and bitter controversy went by before that could be accomplished. Since that time, the Kalevala has had less and less influence in the catching of fish, filling of fish cans and turning out of lumber in the Oregon Country.

The same trend showed up in Finland. Much of the spirited singing in gay mood that Astoria tourists hear in the Old Country nowadays owes its jovial gust to new Finnish beer having more alcohol. To be sure, the Kalevala survives distilled in Helsinki as it does in Astoria. Its perusal can be dropped from the cultural activities of the Finnish Brotherhood but not from the music of Jean Sibelius and from the works of other romantic Finnish composers and painters and writers.

Social developments also have blunted the appeal of primitive Kalevala living. Every attempt that Kalevala lovers made to revive the epic's idealistic way of life flopped. The boldest of these ventures was on Malcolm Island in British Columbia where even the epic's free love was to be achieved after grovery bills were paid.

That noble experiment,however, ended in its romantic souls running out of groceries and credit. They changed over to private enterprise and have lived happily ever afterwards from fishing.

Those island people still have Kalevala hangovers, however. You would assume they must love nature upon seeing crows without a care in the world hopping about in garden corn and perching on low firs in front of homes. And all the islanders are good neighbors seldom locking their doors. Fondness for children hasn't declined from the Kalevala days. Liquor is abhorred as much as ever. And life remains leisurely; the island was in no rush to get automobiles, electricity and television. Yet you won't hear the epic mentioned among the island's new generation which didn't go hungry on the romantic diet of Kalevala and love in a forest.

Copies of this pamphlet may be obtained by mail at $1.00 each from The Finnish American Historical Society of The West, P.O. box 3515, Portland, Oregon 97208.

When the home was taken apart, everything showed how well Finnish axmen had worked. (Sam Foster photo)

This publication is indebted to many people for data and pictures, including Hal Allen, publisher of The Columbia Press; Charles Gilman Davis of Portland State University; Anna Kukkola, daughter, and Mrs. Ivan Jones, Grand~ daughter, of the Lindgrens; William Merila and his sister, Mrs. Hugo Henrys, former Soapstone creek neighbors of the Lindgrens; Carleton Appelo of Rosburg, Washington; The Astorians, Gearhart Wuorif Albert Luukinen, Edward Niska and William Seeborg; Clara Kemhus of Seaside; Steve Wallulis of Jewell; and Carlo Poutala and Einard Riippa Portland.

No doubt the Russians would as soon see the ancient songs of the Finns fade away. Those verses of a happy and free people have served the Finns when they weren't happy and free. It is surprising that in a generation or so, the idealistic influence of the epic, which was strong in Lindgren and his choice company, burned out in lower Columbia Finndom as though it had never existed. If the Soapstone creek idealists were still alive today they would be astonished that those who rallied to save Lindgren's castle and sauna took no cognizance of the Kalevala.

The Finns' very old epic, whose scanty Christian dress was draped on late and hurriedly by clergy, has gone through several wringers in America. After the early Socialists began to grow a Left wing in New World Finntowns, their radicals found fault with Old Country utopianism flourishing among the happiest of Finnish Socialists. Instead of preaching the class war gospel of bearded Karl Marx, the utopian Socialists joyfully worshipped a bearded Finnish Apollo whose gospel was a tasty blend of the Kalevala and the Sermon on the Mount. This Matti Kurikka in his early days headed the entire pioneer Socialist movement in Finland as editor of the Helsinki Socialist organ Tyomies, (The Worker), . and as the most gifted journalist and eloquent evangelist in the new cause.

Kalevala sunshine Socialists, the Finntown radicals ranted as they developed into Wobblies and eventually Communists, softened proleterians into singing pussy-footers instead of hardening them for waging war against capitalists with hammer, sickle and dynamite. Later the Wobblies and new Communists were to attack the moderate Socialists, who believed in light and reason to bring about social change, for pussyfooting in their dance and cultural halls instead of talking up revolution.

In time, the Finnish Utopians were discredited as long haired dreamers in the proleterian arsenal even by the mild Socialists. These Utopians also lost friends among religious Finns by giving a liberal slant to the teachings of Christ and for rejecting the Finnish Lutheran Church as a coldblooded, spiritually sterile tool of churchocrats.

Lindgren, however, got his forest love straight from the Kalevala atmosphere in Finland and Finnish America. His religious nature would not have suffered him to listen to the utopian Socialist though that worthy named his colony after the Kalevala. Lindgren shunned Finntown politics, never flaunting his conservatism.

He differed from most Finnish fundamentalists in that his broad outlook welcomed friendships among individuals of congenial spirit not necessarily of his own religious convictions.

Although the Lindgrens, like most other pious Finnish people in the Astoria area, didn't wrangle with radicals, they couldn't help hearing much politics. By the time the axman thought of erecting the splendid home, Astoria's Finntown of two thousand souls had seen eight newspapers of regional interest started, including the Socialist Toveri, which grew into a daily. The early weeklies, the Uusi Kotimaa, founded in 1887, the Lannetar in 1897, and the Tynenmeren Sanomat in 1902, were edited for improving all Finns without stirring class consciousness -- the ideal of all Finnish American newspapers before the Socialists, Wobblies and the Finnish churches invaded journalism for strictly partisan purposes.

But the Lannen Uutiset, started in 1905, was not able to humor both the Red Left and the Church Right. It leaned toward the advertisers in the middle as did the Sanomat which appeared in 1915. The Socialists of the Pacific Northwest in 1907 launched their sophisticated Astoria journal, the Toveri, (The Comrade). It was originally an urbane "light and reason" party organ and also published numerous

It would not have been possible to save the Lindgren home without help of volunteer workers. Their leader,

Edwin Niska, is shown in this Sam Foster photograph standing on Cullaby lake sand. Affiliated with the Finnish Brotherhood and the Scandinavian Festival Association, the volunteers at the resettlement job included Niska, Laurence Simonsen, Toivo Sjoblom, Vilho Perttu,' John Prepula, Arvid Jacobsen, Ralph Headley, Arthur Stewart, Taisto Ojala, Olavi Nauha, Carl Salo, Alan Salo, Osmo Perkioniemi, Matt Tikkala,

Larry Moberg and Hiram Johnson, the county commissioner. Directing was John Dooley, County parks and road superintendent, Finnish Brotherhood members marking every plank before the house was taken apart in the fall of 1968 were Niska, Sjoblom, Perttu, Salvon and an old friend of the Lindgrens, William Mannila.

They got expert advice from one of the two expert axmen who had put up the hewed house, William Merila of Brownsmead.

liberal books, most of them translated from English, French, Swedish and other languages. Its supporters included local authors whose books were printed by the Toveri. In order to appeal to women readers it was elevating with diluted Socialist culture, the daily in 1911 came out with a weekly supplement, The Lady Comrade, (Toveritar).

These two Socialist organs were challenged in 1922 by a conservative and religious semi-weekly, The Lannen Suometar, published by the Finnish Lutheran Synod of America. No other emigrants in Oregon, outside the many in Portland, had their own newspapers. The Astoria Finns possessed several before Portlandfs more numerous Italians in 1911 came out with the Tribuno Italiano, the cityfs first foreign newspaper. The state’s largest community was never to get more than a dozen or so foreign newspapers in contrast to eight in much smaller Astoria, including a daily which had more circulation in its advertising prime than all its local Finnish and American comrades combined.

Now that the Lindgren home and sauna of masterly construction are preserved, what are the prospects for preserving their old Kalevala atmosphere. Where can it be found? The moderate Socialists, who opposed utopianism as political moonshine in modern industrial society, are gone. So are the staunch church conservatives who rejected utopianism because its crusaders criticized the Finnish church as reactionary. Giving voice to political and religious differences has virtually ended in the old Finnish arenas in Astoria. Not even the children and grandchildren of Wobblies and Communists are radicals. Nor are they well informed on the old issues and with the pros and cons of Kalevala utopianism.

The crusade for saving the masterpiece of a foreign carpenter coincides with a rising national interest in the emigrants' place in America. This may spring from a desire to get rid of discrimination retroactively. At any rate, American research is now delving seriously for the first time into the ideas and deeds of emigrants for other purposes than to restrict emigration and to promote education and social uplift. For the present, this exploration is concentrating on saving whatever records still exist. A number of universities have established emigrant study centers. Whatever the new people from Europe and elsewhere have written, printed or got into books and newspapers is sought by those who are collecting for later evaluation.

This harvesting might possibly be carried on until its experts will show up at the relocated Lindgren buildings. Perhaps the good work of the volunteers on Soapstone creek and Cullaby lake will be recognized as contributions to bringing out the emigrants' cultural score.

How will the researchers look upon the part played in the country's emigrant past by the quarter of a million of Lindgren's countrymen? Such a checkup could prove intriguing. The Finns are a minor segment in the emigrant population, outnumbered by all the Scandinavians save the Icelanders. There is one Finnish statistic, however, which might jolt the cultural weighters.

Those towheads who put out eight newspapers in Astoria have run the score in all of America to more than a hundred, a total not likely surpassed by any other foreign people in this land of the free press. And the number of the books they published, most of them translations of various liberal classics, run high. And the amount of learning dished out in their almanacs, those produced by churches, Socialists, cooperatives and merchants, would fill a modest encyclopedia.

The emigrants from Russia-dominated Finland, who sought to improve themselves by becoming better informed, will be judged by the results. It will be apparent to the culture checkers that Finnish emigrants sought knowledge in their own language in the same way they had done in the Old Country. They promoted benevolent societies, temperance, cooperatives, libraries, music, singing, dramatics, athletics and newspapers in America because they had seen what could be done with them in their homeland. If they are pursued, the emigrant evaluations will bring out that for all their reading in Finnish, the towheads were slow at picking up English. They excelled at airing ideologies from both wings only in their^own singing language.

From the time it was organized on December 6, 1962, our Finnish American Historical Society of The West has seen rapid growth in the emigrant studies of not only colleges but also museums and historical institutions. Courses in various foreign languages, including Finnish, are being given by more universities. In our own state, the Oregon Historical Society organized an emigrant archives section.

It could expand into an emigrant study center. Its collecting of Finnish materials in the region has brought out that Lindgren's Old Country generation read noted books in the course of clearing land, logging and fishing.

The Old Country craftsmanship of homesteader Erik Lindgren speaks for itself with dignity from behind a fence at Cullaby lake. By next summer, people will again be entering that home of hospitality after it is renovated, furnished and given police protection. Few other houses in any American forest could have been removed after long abandonment and look so well on a new foundation. In time, the Lindgren home may become recognized for what it has been for many years — a masterful work of the lost art of ax hewing. (Sam Foster photo)

(The Finnish American Historical Society of The West learned just as this issue of its publication went to press that the Lindgren home has been recognized as a historical monument through the efforts of Hiram Johnson, Clatsop county commissioner, and Elizabeth Walton, park historian of the Oregon Highway Department. A sum of $5000 will be available from federal, state and county sources for completing the home and sauna for public display this summer.)

So esteemed were Lindgrens as host and hostess that their guests came in Sunday dress to visit them. This picture of one of the many gatherings may have been beside the summer home which was across Soapstone creek from the steambath, That the Lindgrens appealed to young people as well as their long time friends is apparent in the happy get together. Something of the importance of getting a photograph taken, a pioneer feeling, stands out, too. Shown from left, back row, Andrew Malinen, Gearhart Wuori, Antti Malinen, Erik Lindgren,, Kris Wuori, and an unidentified young friend; front row, Mrs. Antti Malinen, Mrs. Kris Wuori, Mrs. Erik Lindgren, Miss Esther Malinen, Miss Malinen and Miss Aino Malinen.

Table of Contents

The Pioneer Finnish Home VOL. 6 NO. 2 MAY 1971