Was Pop tough? He ate hunks of V-8 motors lunch and knit socks out of rattlesnakes to keep his feet warm. And we didn't even have rattlesnakes in New Jersey! He imported them! But yeah, seriously, he was tough.
But then so was his wife my grandmother Lilian, one of the 14 Hudson brothers and sisters who left Ireland for American in the first few decades of the 20th century.
And we haven't even talked about my mother, who spent the Clydebank Blitz in an Anderson bomb shelter, doing her homework and comforting her 4 younger brothers & sisters as the Nazis dropped bombs on them from 700 bombers. I am descended from a lot of tough people
All help spreading the word on this substack greatly appreciated, btw. Likes, shares, restacks, whatever. It matters a lot.
Thank you for your comment, and yes, Pop was tough. He could be gruff and heaven knows he could be stubborn — and prideful (I have a story or two about that). But he had been a union organizer & in his words "we got our heads cracked by the cops & the Pinkertons" and he was afraid of nobody and a true champion of everybody. He looked up to nobody and down on nobody, and this is something that my father internalized as well, and that I have tried to live by.
I hope you'll share this story among people of Finnish heritage, and I hope you'll enjoy some of my other stories here on Sundman figures it out! as well.
Right, it's really interesting that he was involved as a union organizer in the US. You mentioned that he left Finland in 1915, this was also a time of political tension, not just about independence from Russia but also workers' rights and industrial action. As he became a union organizer in the US, is it possible those motivations were already present in Finland and he was involved in the union movement there?
I don't know about organizing in Finland. Monas, of course, was just a small village, and Reinhold was quite young when he left — only 16 or 17, so far as I can tell (I'm not sure of the exact year that he fled).
Pop was loyal to Jimmy Hoffa, the leader of the Teamsters's Union, long after it had become clear that Hoffa was deeply involved with the mafia. I asked him about it, and he said "I know Hoffa got in with bad people. I know that. But when we were organizing and the owners had all the cops & Pinkertons to crack our heads when all we were trying to do was collect our paychecks, Jimmy Hoffa was always right up front, the first one to get beat up. There wouldn't be any Teamsters Union without him. So I'm not going to turn my back on him."
In 1972, when I was twenty, I asked Pop who he was going to vote for in the presidential election. That was the year that Nixon was running for reelection on his "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam, and George McGovern, a WW2 war hero, was running on a campaign to end the way and promote civil rights in America.
Pop said, "Well, it looks like I'm going to have to wote for that guy over there that I don't want to wote for." So I said "Pop, don't tell me you're going to vote for Richard Nixon?" Pop said, "Nixon! That Republican son of a bitch! Don't you say his name in my house! I rot in Hell before I wote Republican!"
That year my father voted for Nixon, but he came to regret it and he never voted for a Republican again, lol.
Nonetheless, fascinating stuff and there's likely more to discover about this story. It could be that your pops was involved in the Jääkäri movement (as one person commented above) or then in one of the union/working men groups. Those are the two options that could have led to him having to leave.
It's probably unlikely that your Pop was a Fennoman, as the Fennoman movement had worked to make Finnish a (co-)official language in the 1800s, and Monäs seems to have been a Swedish-speaking village.
Thank you for your comment. That looks extremely interesting. Pop died in 1974, and my father died in 2013, so all that history is now lost. Pop was indeed from a Swedish-speaking home, but he considered himself 100% Finnish.
But also, importantly, 100% American, to the extent that he would not teach my father either Swedish or Finnish: "You're American. You speak English." I certainly understand the sentiment, but it's hard also not to think of it as a loss.
Speaking Swedish, of course, makes him nothing less than 100% Finnish, as the basic idea of modern Finnish nation is that both Swedish- and Finnish-speaking Finns are equally Finnish, like French- and German-speaking Swiss are both Swiss and so forth.
We all come here by different roads and in the different times. Thanks to this country. My best girlfriend in Russia was a Finn. Her family decided to stay in their house when the Soviets took a part of Finland as the victors of the WWII. I didn't understand, why they preferred to live in Soviet Union. Our history is so complicated. Thank you for your story.
Such a great story for the Fourth of July. My grandmother's mother was pregnant for her when they came from Finland to Michigan in 1890. My grandfather came from Finland with his father when he was 17 years old to work in the copper mines in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The plan was to save enough money to bring his mother and his five siblings to America, too, but his father died less than a year after they arrived, and my grandfather never saw his family again.
Thank you for your comment, Ramona. Nice to meet a fello Finnish American. Stories like your grandfathers are so typical for immigrants of that time — and still today, of course, many immigrants face similar or worse privations.
It never occurred to me until today to imagine what my father might have thought upon seeing the graves of his father's parents. He grew up, the son of immigrants, never knowing a single grandparent. My mother's father died in Scotland before I was born, but my mother's mother came to America when I was 5, so I grew up with three grandparents very much in my life (Nana and Pop lived in the same house, even. They had a separate apartment, but still, I saw them virtually every day.)
Changing the topic to my familar bleat, thanks in advance for all attention you bring to this little substack. It's easy to share and recommend!
A very cool story, and it reinforces my opinion on how tough the Finns are.
Was Pop tough? He ate hunks of V-8 motors lunch and knit socks out of rattlesnakes to keep his feet warm. And we didn't even have rattlesnakes in New Jersey! He imported them! But yeah, seriously, he was tough.
But then so was his wife my grandmother Lilian, one of the 14 Hudson brothers and sisters who left Ireland for American in the first few decades of the 20th century.
And we haven't even talked about my mother, who spent the Clydebank Blitz in an Anderson bomb shelter, doing her homework and comforting her 4 younger brothers & sisters as the Nazis dropped bombs on them from 700 bombers. I am descended from a lot of tough people
All help spreading the word on this substack greatly appreciated, btw. Likes, shares, restacks, whatever. It matters a lot.
Just came across your story. Brilliantly written. A journey across the world and at that time, your pop was one tough fella.
Thank you for your comment, and yes, Pop was tough. He could be gruff and heaven knows he could be stubborn — and prideful (I have a story or two about that). But he had been a union organizer & in his words "we got our heads cracked by the cops & the Pinkertons" and he was afraid of nobody and a true champion of everybody. He looked up to nobody and down on nobody, and this is something that my father internalized as well, and that I have tried to live by.
I hope you'll share this story among people of Finnish heritage, and I hope you'll enjoy some of my other stories here on Sundman figures it out! as well.
Right, it's really interesting that he was involved as a union organizer in the US. You mentioned that he left Finland in 1915, this was also a time of political tension, not just about independence from Russia but also workers' rights and industrial action. As he became a union organizer in the US, is it possible those motivations were already present in Finland and he was involved in the union movement there?
I don't know about organizing in Finland. Monas, of course, was just a small village, and Reinhold was quite young when he left — only 16 or 17, so far as I can tell (I'm not sure of the exact year that he fled).
Pop was loyal to Jimmy Hoffa, the leader of the Teamsters's Union, long after it had become clear that Hoffa was deeply involved with the mafia. I asked him about it, and he said "I know Hoffa got in with bad people. I know that. But when we were organizing and the owners had all the cops & Pinkertons to crack our heads when all we were trying to do was collect our paychecks, Jimmy Hoffa was always right up front, the first one to get beat up. There wouldn't be any Teamsters Union without him. So I'm not going to turn my back on him."
In 1972, when I was twenty, I asked Pop who he was going to vote for in the presidential election. That was the year that Nixon was running for reelection on his "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam, and George McGovern, a WW2 war hero, was running on a campaign to end the way and promote civil rights in America.
Pop said, "Well, it looks like I'm going to have to wote for that guy over there that I don't want to wote for." So I said "Pop, don't tell me you're going to vote for Richard Nixon?" Pop said, "Nixon! That Republican son of a bitch! Don't you say his name in my house! I rot in Hell before I wote Republican!"
That year my father voted for Nixon, but he came to regret it and he never voted for a Republican again, lol.
Wanted to check one thing with you, there was a Sundman who survived the sinking of the Titanic and was from the same area. Any relation, do you know?
No relation.
Please see email, to follow.
Nonetheless, fascinating stuff and there's likely more to discover about this story. It could be that your pops was involved in the Jääkäri movement (as one person commented above) or then in one of the union/working men groups. Those are the two options that could have led to him having to leave.
It's probably unlikely that your Pop was a Fennoman, as the Fennoman movement had worked to make Finnish a (co-)official language in the 1800s, and Monäs seems to have been a Swedish-speaking village.
I would guess he was involved in Jäger recruitment activity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A4ger_Movement
Some more links about Finnish anti-Russian resistance of this era:
https://finlanddivided.wordpress.com/the-finnish-active-resistance-party/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kagal_(Finnish_resistance_movement)
Thank you for your comment. That looks extremely interesting. Pop died in 1974, and my father died in 2013, so all that history is now lost. Pop was indeed from a Swedish-speaking home, but he considered himself 100% Finnish.
But also, importantly, 100% American, to the extent that he would not teach my father either Swedish or Finnish: "You're American. You speak English." I certainly understand the sentiment, but it's hard also not to think of it as a loss.
Thank you again for your helpful links.
Speaking Swedish, of course, makes him nothing less than 100% Finnish, as the basic idea of modern Finnish nation is that both Swedish- and Finnish-speaking Finns are equally Finnish, like French- and German-speaking Swiss are both Swiss and so forth.
We all come here by different roads and in the different times. Thanks to this country. My best girlfriend in Russia was a Finn. Her family decided to stay in their house when the Soviets took a part of Finland as the victors of the WWII. I didn't understand, why they preferred to live in Soviet Union. Our history is so complicated. Thank you for your story.
Such a great story for the Fourth of July. My grandmother's mother was pregnant for her when they came from Finland to Michigan in 1890. My grandfather came from Finland with his father when he was 17 years old to work in the copper mines in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The plan was to save enough money to bring his mother and his five siblings to America, too, but his father died less than a year after they arrived, and my grandfather never saw his family again.
Thank you for your comment, Ramona. Nice to meet a fello Finnish American. Stories like your grandfathers are so typical for immigrants of that time — and still today, of course, many immigrants face similar or worse privations.
It never occurred to me until today to imagine what my father might have thought upon seeing the graves of his father's parents. He grew up, the son of immigrants, never knowing a single grandparent. My mother's father died in Scotland before I was born, but my mother's mother came to America when I was 5, so I grew up with three grandparents very much in my life (Nana and Pop lived in the same house, even. They had a separate apartment, but still, I saw them virtually every day.)
Changing the topic to my familar bleat, thanks in advance for all attention you bring to this little substack. It's easy to share and recommend!
That I will do!
Great story! Outstanding! Happy 4th, John!
Wow!