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.

Family History 3, part one

 For the past weeks, I have focused my extra energy on figuring out the life stages of a relative I found by chance. While browsing old American newspapers, my attention was drawn to the memoir of an American Finn who died on the west coast of the United States, which also mentioned the surnames of her parents. Her mother, Anna Huru, was said to be nee Surakka. I had never heard before that my grandmother’s relatives had ever lived on the west coast of the United States. So, I was immediately ready to investigate and find out who she was and how she had ended up in America.

Anna Surakka (Huru) was born on February 11, 1885 in the village of Taipale to the family of Ivan Vasiljev Surakka (1846 - 1902) and Anna Vasiljev Ratilainen (1851 - 1914). The family had lived in roughly the same places since at least the 1530s. A large part of the Orthodox indigenous population moved from the region to Russia in the 17th century due to wars and unrest. They feared revenge on the Swedes, as they had often sided with the Russians as they fought with Swedish troops and troops from western Finland. North Karelia, together with Käkisalmi County, was transferred from the Russian rule to the Swedish krona in the peace of Stolbova in 1617. The willingness to emigrate was also increased by the fear of forced conversion to Lutheranism and the recruitment and propaganda by the Russians for emigration.

It is known that the two brothers of Surakka, Hövilä and Maksima, left for exile to Russia during the "Ruptuuri War" in 1656-1658, but they returned to their homeland. Hövilä returned immediately after the peace came, Maksima a few years later. The Lutheran population moved to the deserted farms during the war from the west (mainly from Savo) and the south. The northern parts of North Karelia were almost completely emptied of Orthodox inhabitants. Almost the same thing happened to the Orthodox in Rääkkylä, Kitee, Kesälahti and Tohmajärvi. However, the native population remained to live in a couple of villages in Kitee and Tohmajärvi. In the eastern part of the province, in the Ilomantsi-Tuupovaara area, a rather strong Orthodox settlement remained, but even there they remained a minority. Liperi, which later included the Polvijärvi, Kuusjärvi (Outokumpu), Kontiolahti and Kaavi areas, which later became their own parishes, also had a fairly strong Orthodox indigenous population. The reason why the population of this particular area did not leave for Russia or return from there was probably that the region was a good farming area by that standard and the native population had the best and most fertile areas on the shores of Lake Viinijärvi, Pyhäselkä and Heposelkä. Although subjected to Lutheran forced conversions and pressure and submissive to the power of the "enemy land", there was a desire to fight nail teeth for the homeland which was cleared and owned by the ancestors.

Many Orthodox lived in the villages of Taipale, Viiniranta, Kompero, Harmaasalo, Sysmä and Sotkuma, as well as along the Pielisjoki River in Jakokoski and Paihola. After conditions calmed down, the Orthodox population, which remained a minority, grew faster than the Lutherans. Presumably it was because the Orthodox were, on average, wealthier than the Lutherans. In the famine years that were then occasional at the time, the scythe man of death reaped his harvest far more abundantly among the poor than the rich.

After the long background explanation I mentioned above, I will return to Anna Surakka’s family. His family's main farm was Taipale village farm number 13. This later formed four farms: according to the 1855 land register, they were Taipale no. 25 Uusisurakkala, Taipale no. 26 Ristonkangas, Taipale no. 28 Wanhasurakkala. Anna's grandparents Vasili Jakovlev Surakka (1812 - 1863) and Tatjana Aleksejev Ratilainen (1819-1887) have been hosting Wanhasurakkala since 1858. After Vasili's death, the farm was continued by his son Ivan (1846 - 1902), who was married to Anna Vasiljev Ratilainen (1851 - 1914). Anna and Ivan's family had eight children, four of whom had already died before Anna was born. When Anna let go of her first tanning, only her three-year-old brother Kondrat was alive. Anna and Kondrat were accompanied by little sister Mary (b. 1887) and little brother Alexander (b. 1894).

To be continued...