Written by Jaana M. H. Jokinen
Told by my grandmother, Hilja Maria
March 1913, Joroinen, Finland

It was a cold early spring day in Joroinen, in Northern Savonia in the eastern part of Finland, where my family lived.

Joroinen is often called the “Paris of Savonia”, because in the 1700s the noblemen there mainly spoke French. Even in the 1800s, the grand manor houses echoed with Swedish and French. Spacious and elegant, painted in soft yellows, pinks and whites, those manors stood out proudly, especially in summer, against the lush green forests and deep blue lakes of the area.

They were built in the finest positions, overlooking the water, with tea pavilions and beautifully landscaped gardens offering the aristocracy both beauty and leisure.

But ours was not that world.

My family belonged to the common people. We spoke Finnish, and our lives were lived among the low-built grey-white wooden houses that formed the working-class heart of the area. We had no lake views, no tea pavilions, no grand gardens. We had milking sheds, cattle shelters, and parents who rose before sunrise to milk the cows and tend the animals.

We had no electricity either. To see in the darkness, my parents burned wood shingles, one at a time. I loved watching my mother make them. She would shave the wood as thin and flat as possible, then place the shingles on the stove to dry.

My mother wore an apron and a headscarf, and her hands were never soft. They were rough and dry, shaped by work, sacrifice, and the daily labour of caring for her family.

And yet ours was a happy home.

There was laughter there. There was cheerfulness, lively chatter, and the feeling of being loved. In my little world, I felt safe and protected. The neighbours looked after one another, and because the families were large, there was always someone to play with. At the end of the day, I would climb onto my father’s lap as he sat in his rocking chair by the fire.

As far as I was concerned, mine was the only world that mattered. For a little three-year-old girl, I had all I needed.

Although the worst of winter was behind us, snow still covered the ground. My brother Ernes and I were a little excited, because it was his fifth birthday.

Then came an urgent knock at the door.

Our mother had just put our 14-month-old baby brother, Kalle, to sleep in his cradle in the bedroom. Ernes and I ran to see who could get to the door first. We always loved it when neighbours dropped by, especially if they brought children with them.

But this was no ordinary visit.

The neighbour’s cow had started calving, and our mother’s help was needed at once. She hurried to put on her coat and gumboots, and as she rushed out the door, she called back to us not to wake the baby.

But children, as they so often do, thought of something reckless in her absence.

My brother and I decided to have a competition. We took the wood shingles our mother had set on the stove to dry, lit them one by one, and threw them through a loose floorboard under the house. The idea was to see which of us could throw the burning shingle the furthest.

It was only a matter of moments before the house filled with smoke.

That was when panic took hold.

Ernes and I began stomping on the loose floorboard, hoping somehow to stop the smoke from rising, but no matter how hard we tried, it made no difference. The smoke kept pouring in.

Then Ernes grabbed my hand and cried, “Hilja, let’s get out of here! The house is burning!”

The front door lock was far too high for us to reach. So my brother climbed up and got out through the kitchen window, calling for me to follow him.

But instead of climbing out after him, I ran to the bedroom where little Kalle was sleeping.

I could not leave him there.

I could not let my baby brother burn with the house.

So I lifted him from his cradle and dragged my startled little brother into the kitchen. By then the smoke was so thick I hardly knew what to do. I was not strong enough to lift him up and out through the window with me.

And so, in the middle of all that fear, I did the only thing I could think of.

I prayed and asked God to help us.

On the kitchen floor were two large sacks, one filled with flour and the other with grain. I carried my baby brother to the flour sack and pushed his little face into the flour, somehow thinking it might keep the smoke from getting into him.

Next door, the fire and smoke had already been seen, and my mother came running back in terror to rescue her children.

Ernes was outside in the snow beneath the kitchen window, crying barefoot, his little feet frozen with cold.

Then I heard the window break as my mother smashed it with her elbow.

She reached in and lifted Kalle and me through the broken window and out into the fresh air.

Part of our house was badly damaged that day and had to be restored. While the repairs were being done, our whole family went to live with the neighbours next door.

And that evening, as Ernes warmed his frozen feet by the fire and we sat drinking cheese-milk, we felt safe again.

We had been told that in the first few days after calving, the mother cow gives cheese-milk. We loved it so much that my brother and I thought it might be a splendid idea to light another fire one day, just so we could have some more.

Children do not always understand how close danger has come, but sometimes a single frightening moment leaves an imprint on the soul that is never quite forgotten.

Note from Jaana:

I grew up hearing this true story. My Hilja-grandma often recited it when I was young. In a strange way, it felt safe to listen to, perhaps because I already knew how it ended. My grandmother was right there in front of me, alive and well, telling it herself.

In 1980, when my grandmother was 70 years old and living here in Australia, we recorded her telling this story. It is from that recording that I have written this account.

Now, as an adult, I shake my head as I write it, and I do so with a heavy heart. What a terrible first memory for a child to carry. What a frightening fifth birthday it must have been for my great-uncle Ernes.

And what must it have been like for my great-grandmother Selma, to come running home and see her house on fire with her children still inside?

Even now, that thought makes my heart ache.

P.S. This photograph was taken in 1912, just over half a year before the fire. In it are Selma, my great-grandmother, Albin, my great-grandfather, four-year-old Ernes, two-year-old Hilja, and baby Kalle, standing in front of the family home that would later burn.

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