#(also making a real unimpressed face at my aunt for holding onto grandpas papers & notebooks & all that for eight and a half years

[violasmirabiles]

APPArently my dads finally got a hold of my late grandfathers "memoirs" (too grand a term but like. childhood and family history not collected together like this anywhere else) and god. like i knew his fathers family emigrated to the usa but its still kind of wild. first three kids of the family are born in kiuruvesi finland. youngest of those three dies on the ship when theyre crossing the atlantic, which, yes this is like late 19th century so not surprising surprising but also why did i never hear about this from grandpa himself whys this News. next two kids are born in negaunee michigan. also thats where they changed the family name to what still is my last name because no way in hell anyone could pronounce the rolled r. the y. the ö. not that the alternative is much easier. my great-grandfathers name is officially listed as peter paul instead of pekka paavo. last two kids were born in kiuruvesi again because the whole family returned to finland for a bit but later some of them went back to negaunee and stayed there. my great-grandfather spoke fluent enough english that in his later life hed point out differences between dialogue and subtitles to my dad (then a kid who didnt know any english yet) when theyd watch american movies on the tv. and other than that he never spoke english because why would he, in monolingually finnish countryside. also not to sound like my family trees a circle but im having So much trouble differentiating between people because there are two last names that mix up a lot, members of these two families getting married here and there and it feels like every womans name is aino or maria and every man is either pekka or paavo or johannes