The children’s book “Lempi of Finn Hollow” is a large-format
children’s paperback sold ($5) on the groups of the Finnish Heritage Museum in Fairport
Harbor, Ohio, north of Painesville (on Richnmond Highway and SR 385, just about
three miles, on Lake Erie).
The book is authored by Elaine Lillback and is based on the
life of Lempi Johanna Sironen Juuti Tokka (1889-1987) and is a sequel to “Finn
Hollow of Fairport, Ohio”. The publisher
is Painesville, Publisning Co in Painesvlle (about 25 miles east of downtown
Cleveland on US 20). There is no ISBN apparent or UPC code.
The book describes a difficult ship crossing of immigrants
from Finland, becoming less hospitable because of Czarist Russian influence. Lempi is born two or so years after the
crossing on High Street, a few blocks from the Lake.
The immigrants are opportunistic in terms of work all over
the northeast, including the iron mines in Minnesota, to heavy steel and tool
industries in the northeast. But many of
them settle in northeast Ohio and work for a shipping company.
The families go through the labor of manually moving their
homes when the docking company demands their land, and the experience is seen
through children’s eyes. Families get
together and raise money to start cooperative retail businesses.
Religious upbringing is very communal.
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