Finnish Families Left an Impression In Bethel

By Chris Costanzo

A Finnish heritage is an important element of Bethel's history. Names like Miettinens, Haikara, and Kleimola used to adorn the roster of Bethel residents, immigrants who came to Bethel to work in the stone sheds at the granite quarry or ply their trade as skilled craftsmen and carpenters.

Many of their descendants are now scattered in the great American melting pot, but last July the the Haikara family held a family reunion and pig roast in Bethel. It required a lot of logistical planning, and it was a great success. They came from all over—200 of them—all related in some way to Aukusti Haikara and his wife Mary Sophia Knuttuunen, who settled in Bethel in 1912.

Aukusti and Mary were born in Finland in the mid 1870s, and were raised there. Two of Mary Sophia's brothers had preceded her to America, both musicians. One played in the band of the great John Philip Sousa; the other was with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Both helped finance Mary's immigration to the United States with two of her sisters.

Aukusti had been orphaned at the age of three, and was raised in Finland by a Quaker family. Among his earliest memories in Finland was working as a shepherd at age 5. Aukusti and Mary met for the first time in the United States—at Cape Ann, Mass. They married in 1900, and lived in nearby Rockport.

It was in Rockport where their first two children were born. The family then moved to Enfield, N.H., where Aukusti worked in the woolen mills. From Enfield they moved to Randolph, where they stayed briefly, before coming to Bethel in 1912.

Their seventh child, Etvi, was only three years old at the time but many years later she recalled the move. She wrote that the family went from Randolph to Bethel by train and, upon arriving at the Bethel station, she saw her dad, Aukusti, working on the roof of the Bethel depot building.

When the Haikaras first arrived in Bethel, the family lived in an apartment over what was then a grocery store, which Etvi identified as the later laundromat building. They may have lived in more than one place. Some family members said the family lived over the old post office, and others say that they had a transient apartment in the Hotel Emery.

In his first years in Bethel, Aukusti worked for the electric company, the tannery, and then for the granite company as a "lumper," loading and unloading cargoes of stone. He also did a number of carpentry jobs for long-time Bethel residents such as Mary Branliere, a well-remembered pillar of the community in those days.

He was eventually able to buy some land that encompassed what is today Bethel's Highland Avenue, and on weekends and holidays built a house there for his family. They moved into it around 1918, before it was actually finished. (The house is currently owned by great-grandson Daniel McCullough).

In the 1920s Aukusti was working on a railroad bridge in Troy, N.Y. and was injured when the bridge collapsed in the river. It disabled him for the rest of his life. In those days there was no social security or support for the disabled, so he and Marie Sophie traded roles: She went to work at the tannery and he stayed home taking care of the cows on their land around their home.

Anybody Finnish?

Bethel's Finns socialized a great deal with each other. Single men who worked in the stone sheds would frequently come knocking at the Haikara door asking, "Do Finnish people live here?" The Haikara family always welcomed them in Finnish fashion by offering them coffee and nisu (a Finnish bread flavored with cardamon seed), a delicacy that their descendants still enjoy.

Another Finnish family, the Miettinens, built their home next to the Haikaras. Later, the Miettinens built a new house up on Christian Hill, and sold their house next to the Haikaras to another Finnish family, the Kleimola.

Although Aukusti Haikara was raised by Quakers in Finland, he and Mary (like most Finns) were Lutheran. But shortly after they arrived in Bethel, Rev. John Wesley Miller walked up to their small apartment and invited them to join his church (today the Miller Memorial Methodist Church). The Haikaras accepted the invitation with the result that all their children were raised as Methodists.

They had nine children in all: Emma, John, Elsie-Marie, Vieno, Eino, Evalti, Etvi, Elma, and Alfred.

The parents were proud to have become American citizens, and encouraged the use of English in the home. The two older children—Emma and John—originally spoke only Finnish. As a result they had some initial difficulty in school because the Finnish language is utterly unrelated to English, with no words in common and a totally different grammatical structure.

Aukusti and Mary made education a priority for their offspring. Everyone in the family joined together to help each other in their studies. Two of their children, Emma (married to Oscar Johnson) and Vieno (married to Tony Panciera), became nurses.  Elsie Marie, who never married, became a long-time schoolteacher in the area, dying at 93 in 1997.

The eldest of the children, John Haikara, died first in 1973. After John's funeral the family gathered in Bethel Gilead at the home of John's niece, Judy McCullough Sanders, daughter of John's sister Etvi Haikara (wife of Jim McCullough). John Haikara's death was extremely difficult for his mother Mary, who was very old when it happened. She  sadly shook her head saying, "It's not right to bury your children."  She herself died two years later in 1975 at age of 97, having long outlived her husband Aukusti who died in 1946 at age 71.

Matriarch Remembered

Royalton's David McCullough, one of the great-grandchildren of Aukusti Haikara and Mary Knutuunen, remembers Mary well. He, his siblings and his cousins would go on horseback to visit her, which was easy to do because in those days Highland Avenue, where the Haikaras had built their house, was for the most part a large field and was not yet fully subdivided.

"We'd love to go there," he said. "Great-grams loved us kids. Instead of being merely indulgent, as so many grownups were, her eyes would light up with excitement and enthusiasm whenever we recounted what we were doing. It was as if she were a friend our own age." He also remembers that Mary was always equipped with lollipops and other goodies for her great-grandchildren whenever they stopped by, which was often.

Survivors from the generation of Aukusti and Mary's children are Alfred Haikara, 84, who lives in California, and Elma Haikara, 93 (widow of Louis Bianchi), currently in Florida. Also still living are their sisters-in-law: Irma Nordfors, 95, (widow of John Haikara) also in Florida and Jojo Pochini Haikara of Bethel (widow of Eino Haikara).

Elma and Jojo were at the reunion last summer. Elma was accompanied by her son Peter and wife Cheryl from Florida. Alfred Haikara and his wife Lois were represented by their sons Adam from New York and Eric from California. The line of John Haikara and Irma Nordfors was represented by their son Johnny and his children from Florida and California.

Branches Represented

Many other descendants of Aukusti Haikara and Mary Sophia Knutuuen came to the reunion. The children of Emma Haikara and her husband Ed Johnson came up from Florida. Eino's children were there—Gerri Haikara from Bethel (married to Ben Rhoades), and Janet Haikara of St. Albans (married to Romie Martell). Representing Evalti's line were his children Pat "Toolie" Davis and Michael Haikara from Bethel.

Etvi's line was represented locally by her son Willo McCullough (of McCullough's Quick Stop) and his wife Bea from Bethel, and by Etvi's daughter Judy McCullough and her husband Clarence "Wimp" Sanders of Bethel, and by Etvi's other sons David McCullough and his wife Judy, and Frank McCullough and the latter's wife Phyllis, all from Royalton, as well as other children from Georgia, Oregon, California, Connecticut and Michigan.

Younger generations also came to the reunion. Willo McCullough's son, David McCullough, was there, along with his siblings, Jamie Lee, Tony-Marie, all from Royalton---all great grandchildren of Aukusti and Mary Sophia.  Other great-grandchildren also came from scattered points of the United States.

The Haikara family gathering last July was not hampered by the warm summer rain that drizzled all day. Tents were set up close together so relatives could gather, visit and share memories.

Of course the younger folks didn't let the rain stop them from spending much of the afternoon at the pool. The event was a reminder that wide branches often grow from tiny roots in small places, and that they are well worth remembering and preserving along with the old world heritage that goes with them.