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FINNISH HERITAGE MUSEUM of Fairport Harbor, Ohio, USA

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Hall of Fame Room is dedicated to Linda Maki Elliot Horton
©By Elaine Lillback
The sweetest music this side of heaven was heard by FHM members and guests at the March 10, 2008 monthly meeting.
         Performing artists Laura Malkamaki and Harvey Horton played their Finnish harps, the kanteles, in a musical memorial of Linda Maki Elliott Horton.  The music performed was: Saima’s Shore, Uncle Herman’s Waltz, and Linda’s Jenkka.
         Master of Ceremonies and FHM President Heikki Penttila related Linda’s life story and gave tribute to her, her father Bill Maki, and widowed husband Harvey Horton.
     Linda is the daughter of Bill and Delores Maki, and her father Bill gifted an honorarium to the FHM Hall of Fame in her memory.  The monetary gift is to enhance the physical facility. 
     Linda was born January 29, 1959, and after a music-filled life of 47 years, she passed on in 2007 into a life of heavenly music to sing and play with the angels.
         She had experienced death twice before her own demise: her mother Dee’s in 1997 and her first husband Bruce Elliott’s in 1993.
     Linda accompanied her father to Finn Fest 1997 in Portland, Maine where she purchased a five-string kantele called the “piccolo”.  Perfecting the playing of it, she advanced to larger kanteles until she could perform on the 79-string instrument.  She was an accomplished pianist and had mastered most of the woodwind instruments in high school.  She had played the first chair flute in the National Youth Orchestra, which had traveled to Europe.  She had graduated from Ohio Northern University where she studied music and computers.
     Linda married Harvey Horton, a Canadian by birth, at Zion Lutheran Church in Fairport in 1996.  He was also a performing musician, and the two joined several other musicians (John Ollila and Laura Malkamäki) to perform as The Kantele Players of Lake Erie.  They performed at various social functions, with the highlight of the Finn Fest in Seattle, Washington where they were also able to receive tutelage from well-known kantele artists, Marja Soria, Timo Vaananen, and Cathy Cushing.  They continued playing at other Finn Fests, and during this time, they acquired nine kanteles from Finland.  In 2001 the group released a CD, Kantele Dreams in which Linda does the vocal solos. (For the rest of the story:Click Here)

OLD FINNISH STAMPS PICTURE FINLAND’S HISTORY
©  By Elaine Lillback
  Letters fly at the speed of light these days when we send e-mail.
Not so, in years past.  Canceled postage stamps are here to prove the history and heritage of our Finnish ancestry. 
     “The first and oldest Finnish stamps of 1856,” remarked Tom Matpack, our Finnish Heritage Museum speaker for the April meeting, “were marked with the Russian KOP.  Finland was under Russian rule.  We can learn a lot about Finland’s history by collecting and studying stamps.  Only ten different stamp editions were in use from 1856-1867.  Before that, the royal mail, a wax sealed and white feather embedded envelope was mailed after being canceled by the printed circle with Kopek.  A similar one, but carrying a black feather in the seal was used by the commoner.”
Tom has been collecting over six decades, at first garnering his Finnish grandmother’s early letters. In those days few people were interested in stamp collection. Now almost everyone is a stamp collector. He enjoys the canceled ones, but likes to get the mint stamps when possible.
Many of Finland’s stamps were reprinted with a number printed over the face of it increasing the charge for a special cause. Such was the sinking of the Finnish vessel Vaasa. The lion stamp in 1921 was increased greatly by multiple penniä. (READ the rest of the story. Click HERE)
Love's Labor is Found (Restoring a 100 year-old loom)
©By Elaine Lillback
A four by five foot wooden frame, standing upright, with a multitude of mysterious hanging strings knotted to wooden pieces, and more strings running laterally, was being meticulously “re-set” in our museum last month.  It had been displayed since our opening, but this ancient machine had its problems.
It was apparent that this very old loom, resurrected from the somewhat ancient past was crying out for restoration. Questions began to fly to the loom’s donor: This is a loom, but what kind is it?  Where did it come from? Whose was it? Is it hand-made? Has it been used here in this area?  Can you restore it?  Who can?
Information gleaned revealed that the loom had belonged to, and was used by the wife of Paul Lehtonen, a well-known and respected Finnish builder of beautiful homes in the area.  Since his death, his wife Kyllikki has been retired in Florida, but still maintains her Concord, Ohio connections. 
When Kyllikki was fifteen years old, her mother purchased the loom for her daughter, enabling her study of weaving at the Finnish school. (for the rest of the story: (CLICK HERE:STORY AND PICTURES).

VOLUNTEERS ALWAYS NEEDEDVice President Pat Spivak and gift shoppe manager and her associates have done a marvelous job in keeping the Museum and gift shoppe staffed for the last year.

We will be open on Saturdays, but we will add Wednesdays, and Sundays soon.

Contribute to your museum by volunteering for a few hours. The time is well spent and can be a great deal of fun, because you never know who will walk through the doors. We have had visitors from around the country and world.

Family History writing project Announced at the April meeting is a fascinating, important, and time consuming project. That is, to research, organize, illustrate, and write the histories of Fairport's Finnish families. The Main Gallery with the FAMILY display shows the beginning of that, but more information needs to be uncovered/discovered, more pictures need to be found, and finally, the project needs to be published.
Watch this space for a template/guideline for writing your family history. Each family will be responsible for the writing, but they of course will be edited for space, accuracy, and content. The volume will provide an important document which eventually will be published and sold by the Museum.

FINN FUNN FEST 2008 Celebrated in Fairport Harbor August 8,9. In a first ever adventure, FHM of Fairport has scheduled a midsummer event known as FINNFUNNFEST 2008 CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION. It will feature events at the Museum and a banquet at Fairport's Hungarian Culture Club with Brad Sussman as the featured speaker. Registration is required and participants may attend the banquet only, or all the events with the registration.(CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION FORM)

FHM Sponsores a (motor coach) bus to FinnFest 2008 The FHM group will travel on a 47 passenger motor coach from Fairport to Duluth.  We will depart late Monday evening, July 21st, from the museum and travel to Duluth.  Driving time is approximately 14 hours; we will stop a couple times while traveling.  We will arrive into Duluth the next afternoon, Tuesday, July 22nd.  We will check in for 5 nights at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites-Duluth Waterfront.  On Sunday we will check out of the hotel for the drive back to Fairport.
CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL DETAILS

FINNFEST 2008 in Duluth, Minnesota, July 23--26. This event is an international event and was in Ashtabula, Ohio in 2007.This year it is in Duluth, Minnesota. CLICK HERE FOR INFO

SUPPORT YOUR MUSEUM Have you paid your membership dues yet?
Have you volunteered at the Museum?

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