NEWSLETTER OF THE FINNISH HERITAGE HOUSE NO. 44 ~ Winter 2105

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Finnish Heritage House Officers President: Jacqueline Harjula Vice – President: Gary Aho Clerk/Secretary: Jacqueline Laffely Treasurer: Edna Montgomery Newsletter Editor: Reggie Montgomery Trustees Fred Webel (January 2015) Elsie Brown (January 2015) Steve Gifford (January 2016) Anne Little (January 2016)

Kirsti Fish (January 2016) Building Committee Chairman: Neil Harjula

Finnish Heritage House P.O. Box 293

South Thomaston, ME 04858 Send articles to regimon@roadrunner.com

Melodic and harmonic kantele tunes warm

up this holiday season!

The members of Suomalaiset Jouset – Finnish

Strings Ensemble have continued to teach and perform on

their 11-string lap harps throughout the mid coast region

of Maine. As musical ambassadors of The Finnish

Heritage House of So. Thomaston, their melodic and

harmonic workouts have brought “lots of smiles” to so

many people! Even Camden Hills Regional High School

hosted the introduction of six new “kantele 101 graduates” to Finland's national folk instrument.

Once we completed our “fall concert requests”, Suomalaiset Jouset members voted on their favorite

holiday tunes that have been part of past concerts. Using

these tunes as part of our bi-monthly warmups, new

selections from Lapland, Finland, England, Germany and

the Appalachian Mountains were introduced. Sixteen

dedicated, amateur musicians cleverly assembled over

thirty holiday tunes to the delight of “tonttus” and

“joulupukki”. Distinguished melodies of Sibelius, Handel

and Bach were masterfully conquered by one and all!

Holiday requests came from The Woodlands of

Rockland, Montpelier Historic Museum of Thomaston,

The Farnsworth Art Museum of Rockland, and Quarry

Hill of Camden. Future concert performances will include

Bartlett Woods of Rockland; The Lincoln House of

Damariscotta, Camden Villa Retirement Center, Freeport

Public Library, and Rutland, Massachusetts.

Artistic and Educational Director

Suomalaiset Jouset

Suomalaiset Jouset have planned to “hibernate” during

the months of January and February, resuming their

Saturday morning practices in March. Anyone

interested in learning to play the 11-string kantele

should feel free to contact us. Remember our

prerequisites: #1. You're never too old to learn an

instrument! #2. You love to laugh, sing and eat

Finnish pulla! #3. You do not need to read music; just

be able to count to five using both hands!

Happy holidays and a healthy, prosperous 2015

New Year to one and all!

Celia Jones,

Artistic and Educational Director

Suomalaiset Jouset

NEWSLETTER OF THE FINNISH HERITAGE HOUSE NO. 44 ~ Winter 2105

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The tenth annual exhibit at Finnish Heritage House

completed its run on Saturday, December 20th. Kosti

Ruohomaa, as with many creative people who die at a

young age, continues to generate a lot of interest in his

life and his work more than fifty years after his death.

One of the nice benefits of hosting an annual exhibit are

the many visitors who return on an annual basis and that

was certainly the case this summer. However, many

visitors new to FHH came to see the Kosti exhibit

including several new Finnish-Americans from the

immediate area. The exhibit will be taken down in the

next couple of weeks and the display panels will be

taken to a local frame shop to be print guarded to

prevent fading. The interior of FHH will be painted and

the floors refinished this winter so that visitors next

summer will be greeted to a fresh new look. The

Ruohomaa exhibit will then be stored in the 2nd floor

archive at FHH joining the previous exhibits which

include: “Pillars of the Earth:Finns and Granite”,

“Finnish American Music”, “Finns and Feathers: The

Poultry Industry In the Midcoast”, “Remembering

Grandmother and Grandfather”, “Maine Finns and

Blueberries In the Midcoast”, “Finnish-American

Handicrafts” and “Finnish-American Veterans of World

War Two”. The officers and directors of FHH would

like to thank our members, the local community and

visitors for the support of our organization....Kiitos

Paljon.

Next summer Deanna Bonner-Ganter, photo archivist at

the Maine State Museum, will be mounting an exhibit

of Kosti Ruohomaa’s work in a gallery at the State

Museum in Augusta. Also, the long awaited publication

of Bonner-Ganter’s biography of Kosti will be

published in the Spring/Summer of 2015 and FHH

hopes to have copies for sale in our Tori (gift shop).

By: Steve Gifford

These are some photos of the display that has been on display at FHH during the 2014 season.

“Kosti Ruohomaa and Maine: A Special Relationship” Wraps Up

NEWSLETTER OF THE FINNISH HERITAGE HOUSE NO. 44 ~ Winter 2105

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Recipe Box

Filling: 1- 24 oz. can Cherry Pie Filling 1- 16 oz. can Whole Cranberry Sauce 3 Tbsp. Corn Starch ½ Tsp. Cinnamon Glaze Topping: ½ Cup Powdered sugar 1 Tbsp. Light Corn Syrup 3 - 4 Tsp. Water Preheat oven to 400°. Make crust for a 9” pie. Use a glass pie plate. In a large bowl, combine filling ingredients. Spoon filling into crust, place top crust on, seal edge and flute. Cut vent slits in top crust. Bake 40 – 50 minutes until golden brown. Cover crust edges after 20 mins. to prevent burning. Remove pie from oven. Immediately in a small bowl, mix powdered sugar, corn syrup and enough water to make smooth and get to a drizzling consistency. Drizzle over hot pie and decorate with sliced almonds. Cool for 1 hour before serving. Enjoy!

Finn Fling On Sept. 20th, the members of FHH and Finn Am joined together to celebrate Finn Fling, which originated based on the thoughts and ideas of Steve Gifford and the late June Ranta Wilcox . It has been very successful, so we continue every year. This year, fifty-five people were in attendance. Several of the attendees were from MA and New York. From 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. the film "People of Sointula" was shown and from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon the film “1913 Massacre" played. At this time coffee and pulla were served and people could visit the Tori, sign up for prizes, purchase rag rug raffle tickets, complete the trivia quiz, and also view Steve Gifford's summer exhibit on the life of Kosti Ruohoma, a famous local photographer. At noon our fantastic buffet was served. Many generous servings of food on the table included casseroles, meats, salads, and side dishes. Many thanks to Arthur Fish, Steve and Mary Gifford, and all others who helped with the cooking, grilling, baking, setting up and also cleaning after the meal. On to the door prizes: The winners were Percy Robinson, Marge Tibbot, Ginny McMullin, Elsie Brown, Kauko Wilson, Marie Campbell, Judith Allen, and Jo-Anne Quinn. The 50/50 was won by Roy Tappio. Anne Little won the beautiful rag rug donated by Tooty Wilson. ( see page 7)The finale of the day was a concert by our kantele ensemble (Suomalaiset Jouset). The group was very well received and now we look forward to Finn Fling 2015. Hope to see you there. Jacqueline Laffely

CHECK YOUR MAILING

LABEL!

HAS YOUR MEMBERSHIP

EXPIRED?

Your name will be removed if you are

more than two years overdue.

When you see Dot Jackson, Congratulate

her on her 90th Birthday. Her special day was

Nov. 9. Happy Birthday Dot !

NEWSLETTER OF THE FINNISH HERITAGE HOUSE NO. 44 ~ Winter 2105

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NOTICE! The tori at FHH has closed for the

winter. We are planning on having the interior trim and floors at FHH refinished. We need to clear all the

tori items and display items from the first floor. Volunteers to help get it

ready would be appreciated. We will have a clearing party in Jan. If you want to help get in touch with an

officer so we can plan this. Kiitos!

Of Special Interest; Casting Call My name is Sofia Eng and I am a casting director in Los Angeles. I am emailing you in regards to our successful nominated TV show “ALLT FÖR SVERIGE” (The previous working title of the show was Great Swedish adventure) We are very happy to announce that we are now conduction a nationwide casting for season 5. Season 4 was beyond successful with the highest ratings ever of 46% in shares (2 million out of the 9 million population watched it) We are looking for out-going fun adventurous people and they have to be Americans of Finland Swede descent. We know that lots of the Finland Swedes back in the day when they immigrated had to choose whether they were from Sweden or Finland. Since they lived in Finland on Swedish ground they automatically became Finnish here in the US. We are looking for those people that spoke Swedish as their mother tongue but came from Finland. We are hoping you have people with that heritage in your organization.. So we thought we would ask if you know of any people with a little Finland Swede blood. We would be so extremely grateful if you could either put up our flyer at your facility, forward our email, print it in a newsletter, post it on your website, or put it up on FB… with other words please feel free to pass it on!!!!! Our deadline to apply is Feb 11. The show is shooting in the summer 2015 in Sweden and hopefully the Swedish part of Finland. To apply for our show they have to go on our website www.greatswedishadventure.com<http://www.greatswedishadventure.com/><http://www.greatswedishadventure.com/> I am also attaching an episode from season 4 of our nominated show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgAdtGmpI6A I am attaching a flyer but don't be discouraged since it says we are looking for American with Swedish heritage we are looking for that too. I thank you so much for reading this and for your help. All the best! M E T E R Sofia Eng | Casting Director-North America | M: +13105008350 1422 Hi Point st suite 104, Los Angeles California 90035 USA Magasin 5 Frihamnen 115 93 Stockholm Sweden. Inspire.Create.Shine. http://www.meter.tv/en Meter TV - Part of The Shine Group www.shinegroup.tv Inspire.Create.Shine.

FHH ANNUAL MEETING

The annual meeting of the Finnish Heritage

House will be held on Saturday, January 17th

at 12 noon, starting with a pot luck meal.

Following the meal, there will be a short

business meeting to include the election of

officers, the Secretary’s and Treasurer’s

report, and any old or new business that

needs to be brought up briefly. Charlie

Heino, one of our favorite speakers, will be

presenting a program about Finnish

immigration. We always look forward to

hearing his words of wisdom, mixed in with

some humor. We look forward to seeing all

our members and guests.

In the event of bad weather, the meeting will

be held on the following Saturday, January

24th

.

NEWSLETTER OF THE FINNISH HERITAGE HOUSE NO. 44 ~ Winter 2105

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HOLIDAY ORNAMENTS WORKSHOP

TONTTUS, SANTAS AND ANGELS

By Irene Rochwarg

On Saturday, October 18, several members of the

South Thomaston area Finnish community and

friends.participated in a workshop to create their own

holiday ornaments. The tables in the Fellowship Hall at the

Finnish Congregational Church were filled with pieces of

wood and trays of seashells. The workshop leader, Irene

Rochwarg, traveled from Yarmouth to bring the additional

craft materials which also included acrylic paint and hot glue

guns. Irene was introduced to “Tonttu Craft” at a FinnFunn

weekend by Jean Bruntner. Since then, the tonttus traveled

to the Camden Rockport Elementary School to be a part of

the month-long series of Finnish cultural activities in January

of 2014. Over 80 children participated in crafting their own

Finnish tonttus.

Irene worked with the art teacher at the school to

provide the tonttu workshops for four groups of 4th graders.

They learned that tonttus are Finnish Elves that bring you

good luck, happiness and protection. The elf-like figures,

made of 4 – 6 inch long wooden pieces, represent the many

spirits of life: the forests, the waters, and the animals. The

also represent the talents and skills of Finnish people. Many

tonttus help Santa Claus (Joulupukki) in Finnish Santa land.

Hardworking elves work all year to make gifts for the good

children all over the world in time for Christmas delivery.

Our South Thomaston crafters learned that there is no wrong

form of tonttu. Every one is unique. Jackie Harjula made a

lady tonttu, and Jackie Laffely made a lobster angel. In

addition to the traditional tonttu ornaments, the workshop

group also made tree ornaments using seashells that had

been gathered by Irene and her helpers at four different

Maine beaches during the fall. Mussel shells became angel

wings, with a round wooden bead or an achorn for her head.

Thin wire became her halo and also became a hanger. Two

mussel shells also became Santa with thick white paint for

his beard, and red paint with a tiny pom pom for his cap.

Except for the paint and glue, all the materials were natural

materials that can be found at the beaches and forests of

Maine. This was another wonderful opportunity for people

to learn about their Finnish heritage and culture.

Irene Rochwarg, Mary Gifford, Steve Gifford, Jackie Harjula, Mari Hanby and Jackie Laffely holding the tonttus they made at the workshop.

Above: some examples of tonttus.

Above and below: The making of tonttus.

NEWSLETTER OF THE FINNISH HERITAGE HOUSE NO. 44 ~ Winter 2105

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Finn Funn Weekend 2014 By: Judy Crosby and Irene Rochwarg

Please note that both of these ladies wrote an article for FHH

about the weekend, so I have taken the liberty of combining

their thoughts and impressions. JLH

The 22nd Finn Funn Weekend was held at the East Hill Farm in Troy, NH for the third time, from November 14-16, 2014. The weekend was packed with Finnish Cultural Activities. Early Friday morning, there was an optional bus tour to the neighboring MA Finnish communities of Winchendon and Ashburnham (home of the nation’s only piano museum) with lunch at Saima Park in Fitchburg, followed by a wine tasting in Bolton, MA. Before dinner Friday, Dr. Sean Tate showed a video “The Finnish Phenomenon” by Robert Compton. Afterward, he noted key points to be taken away from the film. The evening began with hors d’oeuvres enjoyed to the background music of accordionist Bert Stromholm. After receiving a warm welcome, a delicious dinner of baked stuffed chicken and roast beef was served family-style. Following dinner, dance instructors Bernie and Nancy Nowak invited people to join them and learn the steps to a Finnish polka and other dances. Everyone kicked up their heels to the music of the Central MA Accordion Players. After breakfast Saturday, Finnish education expert Pasi Sahlberg delivered an enlightening and entertaining keynote address about his country’s highly renowned education system. He is a well-known Finnish Professor of Education, author and speaker, and has spoken on this topic in over 40 countries. Finland is number one in education as the result of a plan created universally in Finland starting in 1970. Sahlberg stated, “They set a goal of excellence and have achieved it.” He was pleased to be able to speak to a group of Finns about this successful accomplishment. A panel discussion then took place made up of Dr. Sean Tate of CT, teachers Gail Lehtomaki of CT and Julie Karro Gutierrez of MA, and Finnish exchange student Veeti Niskanen. They provided more information and gave the attendees an opportunity for questions.

Irene’s daughter, Sally Soboczinski, an elementary teacher with 20 years’ experience summed up her impressions: “There is a huge interest in learning more about the Finns’ success with education. Pasi Sahlberg is excellent at communicating the Finnish way of education in his own entertaining and informative style. He skillfully describes the important elements of excellent teacher preparation and the respect they are given.” The Tori/Marketplace was open from 9 am to 2:30 pm at the Troy Elementary School where vendors sold Finnish products and food to eager shoppers. Entertainment was provided by the Dance Group Revontulet of Fitchburg and the Musical Group Oivan Ilo of New Ipswich, NH. Afternoon sessions offered were: Molkky for all ages (in rec. room or volleyball court), Finns of New England 1920’s -1950’s, Moomins (children’s literature), Find Your Creative Muse, Genealogy in the 21st Century, Birch Basketry, and a Language Class After another delicious family-style meal, we listened to humorist Fred Marple, the unofficial spokesman for the mythical town of Frost Heaves, NH. He’s on a one-man campaign to put Frost Heaves back on the map, since – as the town’s motto goes: “you can’t get there from here”. Dancing followed to the music of Oivan Ilo playing Finnish folk music. They especially enjoy playing for people who get up and dance, “whether the dancer is learned or spontaneous (e.g. little children).” Raffle winners were posted Sunday morning, with many happy attendees picking up their winnings before heading home. The weekend concluded with Mummu’s Table, with many cooks sharing their Finnish recipes with others, followed by cheese making by Farmer Dave. A wonderful roast turkey luncheon was the finale of an unforgettable weekend for Finns and friends from New England and the Northeast region. We appreciate the hard work done by the committee made of up of Stan Karro, Mauri Auvinen, and Martha Silander. Continued on page 7.

NEWSLETTER OF THE FINNISH HERITAGE HOUSE NO. 44 ~ Winter 2105

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Finn Funn Weekend 2014

(Continued) East Hill Farm makes a special effort to create a warm and friendly atmosphere. The Inn has a Finn in residence, and guests are fortunate that kahvi ja pulla is always available in the family style dining room. FHH would like to thank those members and friends who donated many of the over 60 raffle prizes!

Above: Door prize gifts.

Some of the tori tables and Finnish Folk Dancers on stage.

A closer look at the Revontulet, Finnish Folk Dancers and musicians on stage.

Anne Little is shown holding the rag rug she won at the annual Finn Fling. The rug was generously donated by Tooty Wilson. Tooty donates one of her beautiful handmade rag rugs every year.

The Nominating Committee which consists of Gail Robinson and Arthur Fish has presented the following slate of officers to be voted on during the annual meeting on Jan. 17, 2015. Officers President: Jacqueline Harjula Vice – President: Gary Aho Clerk/Secretary: Jacqueline Laffely Treasurer: Edna Montgomery Newsletter Editor: Reggie Montgomery Trustees Fred Webel (January 2018) Gail Robinson (January 2018) Steve Gifford (January 2016) Anne Little (January 2016) Kirsti Fish (January 2016) Building Committee Chairman: Neil Harjula