Lookout Point Sandy Bonsall

lookout point My mother’s story is my story

PROLOGUE:

It was 2005 when my third grade class was creating the blue and white chairs for Finnfest, the gathering of people of Finnish descent in Marquette, Michigan. Each student was decoupaging pictures of their family history on their chair. I was doing the same.

I was thinking about the women in my family. My great-great grandmother lived her entire life in Finland and I knew her married name was Maria Parkilla. Her daughter and my great-grandmother was Pauliina Parkkila. I decided to write her name on the top of my chair. She came to America as a young mother with two children.

The next name I put on my chair was my grandmother, Christina Nyman. She was one of the two children that came to America with Pauliina. Following Christina’s name, I wrote my mother’s name, Vivian Maki. She was born in Eben, Michigan and Finnish was her first language. Next, I wrote the name of Vivian’s daughter, me, Sandy Carlson. And the last name I put on the chair was my daughter, Leigh Bonsall.

Five names were spread across the top of my chair and the stories of these women were in my head. Many times I wrote bits and pieces of their lives, but never finished. Finally, I wrote the narrative poem that follows.

The narrative ends with a special zig and zag to two special girls, the daughters of my son Brian. They were not yet born when the Finnish chair was created. The story ends with them, or maybe it’s actually where the story begins as we continue into future generations.

The following was written as a tribute to my mom, Vivian, who has an amazing story. She was able to hear the narrative read on a Thanksgiving Eve the year before she passed at age 95. My audience was Leigh, my own daughter.

By Sandy Bonsall

My mother’s story is my story my daughter’s and all the grandmothers and granddaughters backwards to Finland, and forward to America.

In the 1850s there lives a woman in Finland Maria Parkkila with her husband Mats in the north, close to the Arctic Circle not too far from Oulu and Kajanni in a little town called Parkkila. Pauliina, Adolf and Christina get on the wagon carrying all their belongings, heading to the Steamer traveling to America, to Oskar. Maria stands watching.

The wagon pulls away. Pauliina becomes a dot and disappears as does Adolf and Christina.

Together in America, Fitchburg, Massachusetts, a family of four. Frank and Matt are born, Pauliina delivers with no midwife, no Maria, by herself, alone.

But Massachusetts is not to be their home. Further west they move together, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan not too far from Marquette and Munising close to Lake Superior in a little town called Eben where everyone speaks Finnish.

There are forests and lakes dark winters and all day summer sun farming, berry picking, canning saunas on Saturdays music from accordions and weaving the rag rugs.

Famine comes bowls, candle holders, silverware, anything that can be carried south is taken and sold for food Hunger.

Russians pressure, wanting to control conscripting Finnish men for the armies that were not theirs. Unease, distrust, worry.

Maria has babies as many as she can to help with the farm, to make life easier. Her mother is the midwife and is there at Pauliina’s birth. The year is 1863.

A photo of Oskar Nyman in Finland in the 1890s.

Maria knows she will never see her daughter again. She prepares a wake, a funeral wake, a family gathering to say good bye. There are forests and lakes dark winters and long summer sun, farming, berry picking, canning saunas on Saturdays music from accordions weaving the rag rugs.

Maria watches as Pauliina falls in love with a man, Oskar Nyman from Haapajarvi, the next town over. They marry in the Lutheran church shaped like a cross sitting along a river. The year is 1883.

Land getting scarce, Russians at the border young ones restless. Posters appear showing steamers going to America.

Oskar has no land makes shoes, repairs shoes, works on his sewing machine learning a trade that is not enough. Pauliina has one baby Adolf, 1885 and another Christina, 1893. Maria, her mother, is the midwife doing what her own mother and mothers before her had done.

Oskar leaves for America, Pauliina lives with his family, lots of letters two years of waiting. Finally he says, come.

Pauliina has more babies Selma, Anna, Tom, and Charles to help with the farm to hunt for food to can and preserve to do the work.

Church on Sunday The family is Lutheran,

Scenes of life in Finland show farmers using a horse-drawn rake to gather cut hay to rake into piles to dry, and a woman is shown presenting a bull at a fair. (The two images from Finland, circa 1899, by I.K. Inha courtesy of the Finnish Museum of Photography. Photos of the authors relatives provided by the author)

Wedding photo of Christina and Arthur Maki.

Apostolic. Oskar is a lay minister, White Finns they are called.

There are Red Finns, too, those that do not believe are not Lutheran. In Finland rebelled against a church that held so much power over their lives.

Socialists, the Finns that begin the co-ops stand up to unfairness in the mines start the Unions, Red Finns.

Christina grows begins work at a lumber camp helping in the kitchen and there meets Arthur, Arthur Maki a Red Finn, not a White.

Pauliina watches as Christina marries Arthur not in a church, a dog is in their wedding picture. Does she wonder what life Christina will have?

Christina and Arthur begin on a farm near Pauliina and Oskar not too far from Marquette and Munising in Eben, Eben Junction. Finnish is their language.

There are forests and lakes dark winters and long summer sun farming, berry picking, canning saunas on Saturdays music from accordions weaving the rag rugs.

Christina has babies as many as she can Charles, Reno, Frank, Leonard. Her mother, Pauliina, is the midwife and is there at Vivian’s birth, 1924.

The Great Depression, the farm is lost. Arthur drinks, goes on binges works at a bar, gives massages. People hearing of his cures come for treatments. The smell of Michaelbalm, a man sitting backwards on a chair finding the cords, working them out using a book brought from Finland.

Christina’s sister rents the family a house with bedrooms for all, indoor plumbing and electricity. Vivian loves it.

But not to be. Arthur is proud moves them to “the shack,” an old homestead with a well, an outhouse, a woodstove an upstairs for the boys one bedroom downstairs Vivian shares with her parents.

Vivian cries. Christina cooks meals on the wood stove washes clothes in a tub cuts rags to weave rugs picks berries to can grows the vegetables and preserves the meat hunted by the sons.

Christina secretly baptizes her babies, Arthur binge drinks. She leaves for Detroit to live with her sons working in the car factories.

She babysits so the wives of her sons can work. Cars become warplanes and the women become Rosie the Riveters working where men once were, now all gone to war.

But Arthur comes to Detroit promises to do better no binges and Christina returns to Eben and her life.

Vivian grows with heartache and shame wearing old boots, embarrassed in school hating “the shack,” quitting home ec. No teacher is visiting her house.

Vivian at 17 meets Rudy at the Blue Moon, a handsome man a way out. It’s not long before she finds herself living in Negaunee pregnant and married.

Christina gives her daughter a twenty dollar bill to keep, to save just in case. Vivian puts it in her bra.

Vivian has Gary, her son in a hospital, 1942. She protects him as she lives the wife of a miner, a drinking miner on Ann Street.

On Gary’s third birthday when Rudy does not return from a drinking binge, she takes her twenty dollars, buys a train ticket to Menominee.

She sits on the train holding her son against her, sees her husband Her life begins in Menominee living with two women and their three-year-old sons, husbands gone to war. She never talks of her early years, just says Menominee is where her life began.

Vivian needs to work, finds a factory and sprays furniture. Her friend babysits her little boy.

When Jim, James Carlson comes into her life, she tells him You don’t want to date me and he says I know all about you. So it begins, they marry in 1949. Jim adopts Gary.

Jim, Vivian, and Gary in the U.P. of Michigan not far from Green Bay on Lake Michigan in Menominee, a family, English is the language they speak.

Jim works in a factory. Vivian becomes pregnant. They buy a little house. Sandra, always known as Sandy, is born in a hospital, 1951.

Jim and Vivian Carlson with son Gary and newborn Sandy.

There are forests and lakes dark winters and long summer sun, but for Vivian no farming, berry picking, canning or saunas on Saturdays no music from accordions or weaving the rag rugs.

Instead an entrepreneur owning a bowling alley, eventually a bar together with Jim, leaving the factories behind.

A champion she becomes a bowler and a golfer. Her name in the paper a hole in one, a featured bowler on Green Bay TV.

She finishes her high school degree. Gets a license to sell real estate. Works in an office of one of the factories. Raises her two kids.

The 1950s Leave it to Beaver a mom home, a dad working. War jobs all gone, but Sandy’s mom works no Leave it to Beaver for her.

The 1960s Assassinations Kennedy and King, the Vietnam War. High school is for boys no sports for girls. Sandy accepts and wishes she was a boy.

The family is Lutheran not Apostolic like Pauliina and Oskar, but the branch from Jim’s family, Swedish. Vivian kinda believes.

Jim feels guilty owning a bar. Sandy finds her way to church not as a family, but on her own.

In the winter months Christina, now Grandma Maki, comes and lives in Menominee. She enjoys doing dishes watches Edge of Night bakes cardamom rolls sits with Sandy, cat in her lap dog at her feet.

Vivian watches as Sandy grows, graduates high school and heads to Northern Michigan University to become a teacher and as Jim says to find a good man for a husband.

Sandy has a boyfriend in college a bowler, a golfer and Finnish, too. This one mom loves, but Sandy marries Dave, Dave Bonsall the good man her dad wanted her to find.

They live in the north, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan not too far from Negaunee and Eben close to Lake Superior in a town called Marquette. The year is 1974.

Eventually, two boys Brian David and Scott James in 1978 and 1982. Two is good expensive to have three… a girl arrives, Leigh Christina, 1985. Sandy is 34.

There are forests and lakes dark winters and long summer sun memories of farming, berry picking and canning saunas on Saturdays music from accordians weaving the rag rugs all in the past, stories now told.

Sandy teaches elementary school, Dave works at NMU. The boys play hockey, Leigh tags along. Hockey rinks are a second home, a sports family on the go. The family attends Mass all five together, important to Sandy. She is Catholic like Dave a faith from his dad, the son of an Irish Catholic immigrant woman.

Sandy’s days are filled with lessons to plan papers to correct meals to make laundry to do a house to clean, the three kids and all their needs. Dave is on his own.

No bowling and golf for Sandy a disappointment to her mom. Sandy inherits Christina’s loom and dreams of making the rugs her grandma once did. She picks berries for jam has saunas in the gym and smiles to see her cousin playing the accordion on Facebook.

Sandy stays home a year when each baby comes, no pay, but the job saved. Leigh turning one Sandy returns to work half time a kindergarten class. Each afternoon with Leigh on her hip, off to the courthouse to watch the trial of a teacher who protested nuclear weapons at Sawyer Air Force Base just down the road from them.

Dave, Brian, Leigh, Sandy and Scott Bonsall.

WAND is big Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament. A couple hundred women trying to save their children, calling legislators standing in the streets demanding an end to these weapons.

Reagan complies and Gorbachev, too a treaty in Iceland is signed, a start, a beginning.

Sandy coaches Leigh softball and soccer Leigh tells her mom sorry, don’t want to hurt your feelings, but no hockey for me as her brothers skate on the rink outside.

Leigh dances tap and jazz, wins the middle school talent show, dreams of Broadway and Hollywood, a possible star, convincing all her future is there.

First Lady Hillary Clinton speaks 50 miles away. Dad and his office invited so Leigh and her mom go, too, and listen. A woman, a lawyer planting an idea.

High School comes good grades, good student. Northern Michigan looms tuition provided the sensible choice, but the University of Michigan sends a fat packet. There are some forests and lakes dark winters and long summer sun but gone the farming, berry picking, canning no saunas on Saturdays or music from accordions and weaving the rag rugs is not even a memory.

Michigan football parties and studying friends in the dorm, the sorority new worlds opening, possibilites.

Home for the summer, an internship in the Governor’s office, spending a week with Jennifer Granholm touring the Upper Peninsula. Leigh sees up close a woman, a leader, a lawyer.

Graduation comes a career in law calls a surprise but Leigh says Remember the courtroom, the protests you took me to, Mom? That was the start.

Chicago, Loyola three years classes, moot court, law clerking a lawyer, she becomes Hinshaw Culbertson her place now.

She meets Ted, engaged to be married. Decides not now, not ready not for her, Says no.

On her own, the 15th floor an apartment all hers, a life she is loving. She is 33.

Leigh in Chicago, the year 2018 concrete and tall buildings a river winds through them close to Lake Michigan not too far from Marquette and Eben, a day’s drive away.

Six generations from Maria who lived in a little town called Parrkila to Leigh who lives in the big city of Chicago. Six women Sisu, strong and determined.

Backwards to Finland and forward to America, there is more to this story. A zig and a zag through Brian, a son, two beautiful girls Madeline Christine and Georgia James, Eleven and three. Madeline, a lover of sports runs so fast plays soccer, basketball and baseball, too. Living what her grandma never even dreamed, but always wanted.

Georgia, copies big sister hangs with her mom. What is her future where will she go, what stories are waiting to be told?

FOUR GENERATIONS

From left: Family members Sandy Carlson Bonsall, Vivian Maki Carlson, Leigh, Madeline, and Georgia Bonsall represent four generations of women born in America with roots in Finland.

EPILOGUE

My rough draft was done and I was able to read it to my family ... As I reread a letter that my grandmother, Christina Nyman Maki, had signed, one that was confirming the birth of her younger brother, Matt, I realized her mother, Pauliina Parkkila Nyman, had been totally alone with no doctor or midwife to deliver Matt. The family was living in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, after having just immigrated to the United States. They moved to Eben Junction, Michigan soon after the birth of Matt and I can’t help but think Pauliina wanted to be nestled into a community of Finnish people. That’s what Eben was.

Another moment was when I was writing captions next to the pictures I included at the end of the narrative. I decided that on the last picture of my mom, I would write her entire name. She had two middle names and I had thought that was a curious thing. I typed her name out: Vivian Maria Pauliina Maki Carlson. Maria and Pauliina popped out at me. I got the chills. I pictured Pauliina who was a midwife delivering Christiana’s baby girl, her first girl after four sons. Christina wanted her mother’s name, Pauliina as a middle name. Then, I realized Pauliina wanted her mother’s name, Maria, as a middle name. Pauliina had not seen her mother for many years at that point and would never see her again.

Our family did not know the name of Pauliina’s mother until my son Scott was in Finland in a hockey tournament with Marquette’s sister city Kajaani. My mom and I drove to Haapajarvi to see the town that Pauliina and Christina left. A librarian there looked up the names of Pauliina’s parents and her husband Oskar’s parents. It had been lost to us that Maria was Pauliina’s mother’s name. What a special name my mom was given.

I must also add that as I read this narrative to my family, my son Scott said he felt bad for me, that I had no sports in my growing up years. However, I eventually found sports. In my 20s I was able to play softball, then in my 50s did bike and nordic ski races, and now in my 60s play a lot of pickleball. We tease my mom about her bowling and golf trophies, but I must admit, I, too, have a spot for my trophies.

Daughter like mother.