Marrying into a Swedish-Finnish Finnish-Finnish Family..? 26 2 5
On this Runeberg's Day 2026, the day we buried my Appi-ukko, father-in-law, in his family plot in Pernaja, in Swedish Pernå, always known by his affectionate pet name, Jalle.
Me, marrying into a family abroad, my Gentleman Farmer father-in-law with cows and "karjakko" or milk maids living on his farm to tend their flock, back in the days in the 1960's when we married in the same family church in Pernaja, with a sumptuous wedding reception in their yard: between the Shippen, the main house or manshion, and out-houses used to store vegitables and fruit on the ground flours, which doubled as guest rooms on the first floors, a second dwelling, all ready for the retirement of the elder generation, to vacate the farmhouse in the fullness of time, one generation following the former, a square of turfed garden and Flag Pole flying the national Flag in our honour wherein the guests from different parts of Finland and England, on my side because of my past history of working here over a number of years, gathered with most of the members of the village on my wife's side...
The first guests to go down, my guests because not undertsanding Finnish, or Finnish customs, they drank the Wedding toast with Koskenkorva too eagerly, and so fell aslpeep...fortunately for me, not too much before the first of my bride's guest also dropped off. lol .
But if they never wished their younger daughter would marry an Englishman you couldn't have guessed from either of their demeanours, my father-in-law always putting a bottle of bear in my hand, whenever we visited, my mother-in-law, Kaiju, also most attentive, putting the most exquisite food on the table at meal times.
The fact that I was Finnish speaking rather than Swedish, my wife's family regarded as their language of choice, no big deal because everyone was bilingual in both national languages, and me their second son-in-law, who only ever spoke Finnish, in addition to my mother tongue of English.
As I write this blog I sit at my father-in-law's elder brother's desk: John's, who fell in the closing days of WW II to Soviet Russian fire, wherein my f-i-l got to inherit the farm instead of John. To my right the clothes horse my mother-in-law bought me, as a birthday present one early year, so that I could hang my suits of clothing up before turning into bed.
Then before long we began to meet them whenever we went on holiday: their visiting England at least half a dozen times. On one occasion our larger family of my wife's Parents and our children touring the South of Ireland together in conjunction with one of ther visits when I got to be chaufer in my Company Ford Capri...
Me, marrying into a family abroad, my Gentleman Farmer father-in-law with cows and "karjakko" or milk maids living on his farm to tend their flock, back in the days in the 1960's when we married in the same family church in Pernaja, with a sumptuous wedding reception in their yard: between the Shippen, the main house or manshion, and out-houses used to store vegitables and fruit on the ground flours, which doubled as guest rooms on the first floors, a second dwelling, all ready for the retirement of the elder generation, to vacate the farmhouse in the fullness of time, one generation following the former, a square of turfed garden and Flag Pole flying the national Flag in our honour wherein the guests from different parts of Finland and England, on my side because of my past history of working here over a number of years, gathered with most of the members of the village on my wife's side...
The first guests to go down, my guests because not undertsanding Finnish, or Finnish customs, they drank the Wedding toast with Koskenkorva too eagerly, and so fell aslpeep...fortunately for me, not too much before the first of my bride's guest also dropped off. lol .
But if they never wished their younger daughter would marry an Englishman you couldn't have guessed from either of their demeanours, my father-in-law always putting a bottle of bear in my hand, whenever we visited, my mother-in-law, Kaiju, also most attentive, putting the most exquisite food on the table at meal times.
The fact that I was Finnish speaking rather than Swedish, my wife's family regarded as their language of choice, no big deal because everyone was bilingual in both national languages, and me their second son-in-law, who only ever spoke Finnish, in addition to my mother tongue of English.
As I write this blog I sit at my father-in-law's elder brother's desk: John's, who fell in the closing days of WW II to Soviet Russian fire, wherein my f-i-l got to inherit the farm instead of John. To my right the clothes horse my mother-in-law bought me, as a birthday present one early year, so that I could hang my suits of clothing up before turning into bed.
Then before long we began to meet them whenever we went on holiday: their visiting England at least half a dozen times. On one occasion our larger family of my wife's Parents and our children touring the South of Ireland together in conjunction with one of ther visits when I got to be chaufer in my Company Ford Capri...
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