Family History - Part three

Information about the marriage of Anna Surakka and John Alfred Huru. It was performed on October 6, 1917 by Pastor A. L. Heideman, the witnesses were (Pastor) Paul Heideman and Jemina Korpi. The marriage was Anna's first and John Alfred's second.

Anna Surakka and John Alfred Huru were married (October 6, 1917) by Arthur Leopold Heideman, pastor of the Calumet Apostolic Lutheran Congregation. The change of Anna’s denomination from Orthodox to Lutheran must have taken place either while Anna was living in Toronto or at the time of her marriage. John Alfred Huru was born on February 27, 1892 in Vadsø, Norway. His parents were Henrik Huru[lin] (1865-1937), originally from Karungi, Sweden and Brita Halonen (1856-1913) who had moved from Finland. The home language was presumably Finnish, but the local Norwegian-language school took care that he was also proficient in Norwegian. Thus, he states in the U.S. census that he is Norwegian-speaking. Johan Alfred worked for the mining company Calumet & Hecla as a carpenter, and according to some documents, also as a miner. In 1918, the family lived at 118 1st Street, Centennial Heights, Calumet.

John Alfred Huru (1892-1941). The picture is a detail
from a large group photo and therefore unclear.

Johan Alfred’s marriage to Anna Surakka was his second marriage. Namely, on September 1, 1915, a person named Alfred Huru was married in Calumet to Eva H. Mansikka. The documents show that Alfred was born in Norway in 1892 and that his parents were exactly the same as John Alfred's aka Henrik Huru and Briita Halonen. So I assume the same person is in both cases, as the documents say that the marriage to Anna Surakka was a second for John. I have yet to find an answer to whether the marriage ended in divorce or death. However, the marriage apparently gave birth to a child. I found a reference to the existence of a child in the drafting documents. Namely, in April 1917, the United States joined World War I and the country began general draftings. In June 1917, John Alfred was also called to draft despite the fact that he was not a citizen of the country at this stage. However, he was not called up for military service, but according to the document, he had one dependent child at the time.

Update on John Alfred Huru's first marriage. I found it in a Norwegian newspaper (Øst-Finmarkens Folkeblad in second of July 1917) the attached death notice. According to it, Eva Johanna Mansikka Huru had died on March 18, 1917 in Calumet, Michigan. The family's child Hubert was left a half-orphan at two days old. Eeva Johanna Mansikka was apparently from the Tornio region of Finland.

According to Anna Surakka Huru's memoir, the family lived in Calumet for a while until they moved to Fort Bragg, another favorite destination for Finnish immigrants, on the west coast of Northern California. The family lived in Fort Bragg for a couple of years, but in 1919 moved to the third favourite settlement site for Finnish migrants in Oregon, the city of Astoria. This salmon-fishing town at the mouth of the Columbia River became the final home of Anna and John Alfred Huru. According to the 1920 census, the family then lived at 1247 Franklin Avenue. I will tell about the steps of the family at the mouth of the Columbia River in my next post.