Running in the family way

 Today I've been thinking a lot about grandparents. Mainly my own.

Here are my both grandmothers as young women. The first photo is my mother's mother Hilma Aune Emilia and the second my paternal grandmother Terttu Eeva Inkeri (the dark haired smiling nurse on the left).

What have I inherited from each? Socially as well as genetically. I think in Hilma-mummus case I've gotten the ability to first and foremost try to see the good in people. What I most admire about her, was her incredible resilience and that she never seemed bitter about anything. She lost her father quite young, lived through war, toiled hard as a farmer's wife and buried five of her nine children - one as a little baby, four as adults, and still she remained positive. She never judged people, or talked nastily of anyone.

I am a little disappointed that she never talked about her childhood or youth so that I was present. I would have liked to know her better, to form a more multidimensional picture of her. 

My own mother has started to look so much like Hilma-mummu in her later years, that it is borderline scary. 

Terttu-mummu, or Tummu, as we called her, wasn't always the sweet granny. She could bloody well hold her own, and then some, in an argument. Soooo anyway, that's where that certain stubborness partly comes from. Although I can't give all the credit to Tummu here. 3/4 of my grandparents were stubborn to the point of hardheadedness. 

She also taught me to appreciate poetry, arts and crafts. She was an avid knitter and embroiderer. She made me my first very own kansallispuku, and always supported my childhood attempts at a craft project. Everyone in the family laughed at us, when I got some grand idea, like making a First Nations -style costume from scratch or making an audio book of my favourite novel, and Tummu got just as excited as I was and helped me plan and execute.

Tummu was very active on all kinds of associations, like Maatalousnaiset, who had a lot of themed gatherings. Usually they gathered in some members' house and learned and tried out new handicrafting techniques. And I was always welcome to participate. 

So when I started my deep dive in handicrafts some decades later, I had some kind of passing familiarity with many different techniques. I had carded wool and tried spinning, felting, weaving, bead embroidery, sewing, crocheting, candlemaking... I had an excellent mesenate and coach as a kid.

Tummu would have been beyond herself with pride to see me study traditional costume making. I am certain my first real job would have been to make her a costume, were she alive. 

This is my both grandmothers around the time I knew them. Hilma-mummu's portrait with her darling Muru was taken some years before I was born. By the time I came along, cattle was no more, but it is an exceptionally good portrait of Hilma-mummu. 

Tummu's pic has me and my childhood bestie, Bordercollie girl Grisse as a bonus. Yayyy, we're cute!

Here are my grandfathers. Kalervo Johannes and Viljo Antto. Handsome devils both. 

Kalervo, my mother's father, was a farmer who believed in manual hard work. He didn't much admire education or authorities. Kassu-vaari had a devilish sense of humor, and sure didn't turn down a dram or six of vodka or cognac. He smoked and took snuff for over sixty years but kept his own teeth and lived to be ninety. He was very skilled carpenter and could do basically anything of wood. Basketmaking was the craft I remember him doing when I was a kid. My mom still has one or two big wooden shingle baskets of Vaari's making. 

Traditional shinglemaking and basket weaving is very intriguing and I'd very much like to learn it. And I think I might have a little bit of Vaari's healthy criticism of authority...

Viljo Antto, my Äijä was the eldest son of a factory working family,  became his single mother's right hand at age ten and worked to help educate his siblings before studying to be construction foreman himself. He was a factory town boy, but bought a farm around the time everyone else was moving out of the countryside. It was his dream and he enjoyed country life immensely. Running the farm was never his main occupation, but a passionate hobby. He was natural with practically any animal, and I think that is the greatest thing I learned from Äijä. To appreciate and approach animals, see them as living breathing creatures that definitely had personalities and were always to be treated well. 

I was taught to respect animals, but never fear them.

And here's the granddads as granddads. Kassu-vaari cracking a saucy joke and Äijä taking a nap after lunch. Again, photobombed by yours truly, and my fave fairytale of a wolf and seven little kids (the goat kind).

Both Vaari and Äijä served in the IIWW, but from a very different perspectives: Vaari hadn't been in the army because of a childhood illness that had bowed his back and during the Winter war he was a non-combatant in the front lines, at night digging open the trenches that artillery fire had crumbled. During the intermittent peace he was supposed to go to army to make him an infantryman, and he went, in a way... He had seen 3,5 months of furious war up close and personal, had a farm to tend to, was newly wed and his wife was pregnant. He damn sure wasn't going to waste his time learning to walk in step, he had hay to make. Thanks to an understanding higher officer he got away with it. In war he did his job well, but again didn't think very highly of higher-ups.

Äijä was over ten years younger. He was 12 when the war began, and volunteered as soon as it was possible, after turning 17. He became a non commissioned officer and was active in matters of defense all his life. He was proud to be "an officer and a gentleman".