Family History - Part four

This picture possibly features Anna Surakka Huru (1885-1950).
The image is a detail of a blurred group image

 John Alfred and Anna (Surakka) Huru lived in Astoria for the rest of their lives. John Alfred states in the 1920 census form that he arrived in the country in 1909. Anna’s year of arrival is marked 1911, which is actually her year of arrival in Canada, not the United States. The state of Michigan is the birthplace of the two eldest of the family's children, and the father is said to work at a lumber mill.

Bertha Huru Jurvakainen 1918-1993

Five children were born to the Huru family. The oldest of them was Hubert (March 16, 1917 in Calumet, Michigan - August 1, 1975 in Longview, Washington), nicknamed Hoobie (who-be). Was Hubert, who never married, possibly from Johan Alfred’s first marriage? Johan Alfred and Anna get married not until on October 5, 1917. Hubert was followed by the daughter of Bertha (September 25, 1918 in Calumet Michigan - November 9, 1993 in Longview, Washington), who became the mother of a large family. According to the memoir, Bertha had nine children, four daughters and five sons, and 52 grandchildren. It was not until the family that moved to Astoria that a son named Edward was born on October 24, 1919, who died at a very young age, or 45, on January 11, 1965 in Interlachen, Oregon. Edward was also married and had three children, according to the memoir. In 1921, the Huru family rejoiced at the birth of daughter named helen. I have very little information about her life stages. In 1950, she is mentioned to be Mrs. Clayton Crow, who lives in Portland, Oregon. In 1975, she was known as Mrs. Helen Reynolds, who lived in Long Beach, California. The youngest child in the family was Hilda, born January 9, 1925. Hilda lived for a long time in Southern California and Phoenix, Arizona. For the last 25 years of his life, he lived again along the Columbia River in the town of Longview. On April 16, 1971, Hilda married Thor Jacob Johnson (1912-1997), who moved as a young boy from Sweden to the United States with her parents. The marriage was childless. Hilda Huru Johson died on October 25, 2007 in Longview, Washington.

Hilda Huru Johnson 1925-2007

The 1940 census records show that John Alfred worked as a stevedoring worker. His annual earnings were $ 2,163 ($ 41,557 in current money). Children, living at home, were Edward, a 20-year-old truck driver, and Hilda, a 15-year-old schoolgirl. Next door along the same street (Columbia Avenue) lived the family’s 21-year-old daughter Bertha, who was married to carpenter Arne Jurvakainen. The whole area seems to be strongly inhabited by the Finnish population. The families of Mäki, Silver, Blomqvist, Niemi, Huhtala and Reinikka, as well as the lonely Hilja Sorvari and Jacob Merilä, lived next door. There was even one family with German father living in the middle of the Finns, but he had managed to marry a Finnish girl Eve. Is Finnish, as a native language, probably also echoed in that family? Thus, as a former educator, my attention was drawn to the fact that the Elsie daughter of the Silver family, who worked as a teacher at a local school, earned only $ 1,260 a year. Were the teachers already clearly underpaid at the time?

Memorial to Anna Surakka Huru (1885-1950)

The Huru family experienced great grief in the fall of 1941 when the family's father died at the age of 49. John Alfred Huru was born in Nrwa in Vadsø on February 27, 1892 and died in Astoria on September 23, 1941. Anna’s life span also didn’t turn out long anymore either. He became seriously ill with stomach cancer in the late 1940s. Despite being operated, Anna died on December 11, 1950. John Alfred and Anna are buried in Lewis and Clark Cemetery, Miles Crossing, Clatsop County, Oregon. Although Anna has been resting for 70 years in the lush shores of the Columbia River, her heirs still live in the United States in at least dozens if not hundreds.

The series continues with the story of Anna’s sister Maria.

Finns in Fort Bragg: The Westerberg family from Vadsø, Norway

Westerbergs, which moved from Vadsø (Vesisaari), Norway to Fort Bragg, California, in a family picture taken  around 1903

Many of the early Finnish settlers on the U.S. West Coast came not direct from Finland but instead from Northern Norway. One of them was John Peter Westerberg. He was born April 11th, 1856, in Vadsø (Vesisaari) , Norway,  on the Varanger fjord at the Barents Sea. He had Norwegian parents and his ways may have been more Norwegian than Finnish. But he fit into the Noyo Hill's Finnish community very well, when he came there in 1881. At twenty-five years age he immigrated with his wife and four other Norwegian families from the same region. Three of them is known, Mathisons, Aulins and Raudios. Shortly after their arrival in America Westerberg's wife died.

John Peter worked first at logging in the woods along the South Fork of Noyo River. In 1892 he was able to purchase 160 acres on Noyo Hill from Simeon Covington. He paid $ 800. There was a cabin on the property that Westerbergs could use immediately. John Westerberg got married second time with Effina Emilia Hy(v)önen, who was also from Vadsø, Norway. She was born July 8, 1871 in Saltijärvi, Norway. Their marrige accured April 20, 1890, in San Francisco. John Westerberg's brother David and his wife Hilda and John's and David's grandfather moved also to Fort Bragg area. The men logged the hillsides and made ties to earn money. They also built John Peter a large barn and fenced the fields. At the same time a sauna and several cabins were built. Simeon Covington had planted a cherry orchard and the Westerbergs added orchards of apples and plums and vegetable gardens. Finally a two-story house was constructed.

John Peter Westerberg (1856 - 1934) was a lay
preacher first in the Finnish Evangalist Lutheran
Church and later in the Apostolic Lutheran
Church of Fort Bragg.

The Westerbergs had nine children in all. Their first child, Francis, fell against a hot stove and died from severe burns at the age of three in 1894. A second tragedy struck again when their daughter Annie was sixteen years old. She fell in the well and drowned.  Seven of the children reached their adult age and were also married. John Peter Westerberg became a citizen of the Unites States June 19, 1889.

When George Eskola finished church building in 1894 for the Apostolic Lutheran congregation on Harrison street, was John Peter chosen to serve congregation as a lay preacher. He had been a lay preacher for the Finnish Evangelist Lutheran Church during years 1890 - 1894. According to tradition, parishioners gathered almost every Sunday after church at John and Effie Westerberg's ranch. The yard was filled with horses and buggies as parishioners gathered for pot-luck dinner. Effie Westerberg had reputation of being a very good cook. Besides food supplied from the farm, in season there was salmon the men caught in Noyo River that she pickled or smoked.

John Peter Westerberg had a library in his home where people could borrow books, mostly written in Finnish. Each book had its own number, names of readers were written beside the numbers and record of when books were returned was noted by an X after the borrower's name. John Peter was a very energetic and highly considered person. He was active in his church, a board member of Tunnel  School at Noyo Hill, a member of the first board of school trustees of the Fort Bragg Union High School District. His obituary  states: "He was a fine, upright man who commanded the respect of his friends and neighbors." Effina Westerberg died in August 1930 and John Peter February 22, 1934 at the home of his daughter Ida in Oakland, California, where he had been living two - three years.

Westerbergs in the Finnish Evangelist Lutheran Congregation's church book, page 189