We had completely forgotten the letter until the day before we were to make the exodus when another letter arrived from Jacob Farmington.
Reverend Risto again shared its contents with us over dinner:
“Dear Reverend Lappala,
“First, allow me to thank you most sincerely on behalf of all of the members of our congregation for considering a trip here.
“Second, let me assure you that although we have had some trouble with a few of the more out-spoken Lutherans, we are sure they would never dare to harm a minister as recognized as you are all across the state of Minnesota and obviously even into North Dakota.
“Of course we cannot promise you complete safety, but we have never experienced any overt actions condemning our beliefs. Quite the contrary—we have had three families leave the local Lutheran church, which is a part of the Swedish synod and is almost Catholic in the order of their church activities, to join our congregation.
“Again, we thank you most sincerely for your willingness to come to visit with us, to conduct services, and to help us to begin the process of getting a pastor of our own.
“Sincerely,
“Jacob Farmington, Chairman of the Board”
“So,” Reverend Risto said, smiling across the table at each one of us, “it seems as if I shall not be joining you in Metsola until the beginning of July—hopefully to enjoy the picnic both the Virginia and Alango congregations put on at Lake Leander during mid-July.”
Then he turned to his wife, “Milma, are you ready to hold the fort so to speak here?” His right hand rested on hers, a loving touch we were used to witnessing.
“Of course, my love,” was her answer, and she turned her hand over so that they clasped hands for a moment. It was not uncommon to see the love between them shown, and it gave me a strong desire to share that kind of love with the man I’d choose to marry—if and when he ever came along, I thought, with my sixteen-year-old brain.
And so that night was spent packing not only for Metsola but for Reverend Risto, who was starting out on his quest to aide a congregation in North Dakota and its fledgling members who so wanted and needed his help.
We all went together to see him board the DM&IR train, which would bring him to Duluth, where he would transfer to the one that led to the Twin Cities, there to connect with a line heading for Fargo, where Jacob Farmington would pick him up and bring him to Hillsboro. He promised to write every day even though we would not get his letters daily. Mail service to Metsola was sporadic to say the least, and we would have to arrange for someone from the Virginia congregation to gather his letters and bring them in a packet to us.
His first letters were enthusiastic but guarded, as if he knew something he was reluctant to tell us for fear we’d worry. I saw Milma holding his letters—the first packet—and reading them over and over again, trying to read between the lines. She shared bits and pieces of them with us, over the dining room table.
“The congregation here welcomed me with open arms,” one of his first letters said. “I was immediately drawn into the lives of the two members of the congregation who had died and so was able to speak about each one as if I had known each intimately. That seemed to bring real solace to their families, which alone made this whole trip seem worthwhile. Tomorrow I shall officiate at the first of three marriages, this one quite a big event. It’ll be held at a one-room schoolhouse about five miles into the country. I’ve spoken with the bride and groom several times already, and they seem absolutely committed to each other and to their Unitarian faith.”
The next packet of letters contained more about the marriages. One had been held in the bride’s family’s garden in Hillsboro. Evidently her family owned several businesses in town as did his family, and so it was a good marriage for business reasons as well as for the love that sang between the two young people. Risto spoke of love often. It was so large a part of his life—of his beliefs, of his treatment of others, of his very nature.
“The last marriage was as different from the other two as marriages can sometimes be when the families are distraught,” he commented, and Milma read to us. “Both families are dyed-in-the-wool Lutherans, and neither family attended the ceremony, held in Jacob Farmington’s living room. The young couple, obviously deeply in love, had made their peace with their decision to move on a different path in terms of religion from their parents,” he said.
We wondered about that, hoping there would be no after-effects, but Milma hurried on to the news of the baptisms. “The babies cried loudly when I sprinkled water on their heads, which pleased their parents enormously although I had been somewhat concerned. They seemed to feel it a good sign they were aware that something momentous had happened to them and they were reacting to it. I was relieved!”
We all smiled at that.
“I didn’t have roses, but I made do with colorful blue and lavender morning glories, which grow on a trellis beside Jacob’s house. I likened their opening to the dawn of a new day to the birth of each of the children, who were opening to the dawn of their lives. The parents seemed to appreciate the symbolism.”
Milma skipped over a part of the second page of a letter that had come with the third packet. She left the letter open on the desk in the study so I was able to read it while I was dusting without peeking too much. In it, Reverend Risto expressed concern over the third marriage, the one between the couple who had been raised Lutheran.
“I must tell you that I don’t feel comfortable walking down the main street of Hillsboro. I receive dirty looks from some of the people as I meander along. I try very hard not to worry about the news that some of the members of the Lutheran community are incensed that I performed a marriage ceremony between their children. Nothing overt has happened, but I mentioned the reaction I was receiving to Jacob, who apologized profusely. He did, however, also express some concern about my safety. Thus I believe that as soon as we have received notice from the Prairie Star Committee that a minister has been assigned to this congregation, I shall leave.”
How could he know it was already too late?
One evening not many weeks after we received that letter, a Model T drove up to the lawn. To see a car was so unusual we all gathered on the porch. Mr. Savolainen, one of the members of the Virginia church board of directors, climbed down and, looking sorrowful, handed a telegram to Milma.
She read it, then drew a hand to her cheek, brushed away tears, and thanked Mr. Savolainen for bringing her the news so quickly.
Turning to the rest of us, she said quietly, “We must gather in the living room. I have something to tell you that will hurt you as it has hurt me just this moment.”
Quietly we all filed into the living room. The children took their usual places around the room, leaving the sofa for Grandmother and for their mother, who grasped the back of one of the rocking chairs as if she needed support.
“Something terrible has happened in Hillsboro,” she began, then broke into sobs. I ran to her, put my arms around her, and she clung to me for a moment then stood up and and said, “We must face this together. Your father… Reverend Risto…” again she paused, as if gathering strength to continue. “No one had recognized the depth of the anger felt by the Lutheran families. This telegram is from Jacob Farmington written to inform us that”—again she struggled for breath—“that a group of Lutheran men—at least Jacob believes they were Lutherans—for who else held a grudge against such a good man?… They came to the Farmington home late last night, took Risto away, and…” Sobs broke through again. “When he found him this morning, in the middle of the street at Hillsboro, he had been tarred and feathered.”
She looked each of us straight in our eyes and said, “He is dead. The tar they had evidently applied had been hot, and they had used it on his face as well as on his entire body so that there was no way for him to breathe. Then they had rolled him in feathers
or dumped feathers on him, and finally they brought him into the middle of town so he could be seen by everyone. It is a… particularly… horrible… and humiliating… punishment.”
She paused to take a deep breath and then forced herself to go on. “When Jacob and the other Unitarian men, who had gathered together during the night, tried to pull the tar away, his skin and his hair came with it. There was no way he could have survived the shock and pain. They have asked me to come to pick up his body, and they have asked what they are to do with… his… body.” Again her voice trembled. “I shall have to go there.”
“But you can’t!” the children chorused. “We need you here! What will happen to you? We can’t let you go!”
“I must,” she said firmly. “The Unitarian congregation there is in deep mourning, feeling terribly guilty and hurting as much as we are. They need me.”
“But we need you, too?” the children cried, sobbing, running to their mother.
Grandmother and I looked at each other, unwilling to believe the truth and yet having to come to grips with it.
“I shall go with you,” I announced, unaware of what I was going to say until it just came out. “Grandmother and the children can stay here. But I’m going with you. You can’t face this alone.”
Milma looked at me, her eyes brimming with tears. “Thank you” was her response. It held a world of grief, and yet she said, simply, “I’m afraid you are right. I do need you, Maria, if you’re willing to come with me.”
“Of course.” I answered simply.
Mr. Savolainen had stayed in the background. Now he stepped in. “I’ll make arrangements for you at the train station. You’ll leave tomorrow morning on the first train out?”
“Yes,” was all Milma could say. The children continued to cling to her and she held them, all three of them, as close to her as she could. Then she turned to her mother, buried her face in her shoulder, and shook with sobs.
“Somehow I had a feeling about this trip,” she cried. “It just felt too good to be true. And it was.”
The next morning, Milma and I set off on our horrible errand. Milma had telegraphed Jacob to have a simple wooden casket made for Risto’s body. What to do with it was the question we had to answer for ourselves. Milma, of course, was hesitant to share the awful news with her Minnesota congregations. But to leave him to be buried… where he had been so terribly hurt… also seemed wrong.
But by the time we got there, we were immersed in a grief so overwhelming we simply could neither leave nor make a good decision. Thank goodness there was no anger. That emotion had come and gone. All that was left was their grief at what had happened—at what had been allowed to happen—in their small town. The Lutheran minister had visited with the Unitarian Church Board, expressing his utter disbelief at what some of his parishioners had obviously done.
“They should be convicted of murder,” he said. But no one was willing to tell who had perpetuated the act. The entire congregation of the Lutheran church had seemed to come together to echo the sorrow felt by their neighbors.
We stayed for a week. Milma conducted a memorial service for her husband in the one-room school in the country where he had so joyfully performed the wedding. Everyone from the community attended—Lutherans and Unitarians alike.
How she managed I’ll never know, but she did. She talked quietly about his life and his beliefs—especially his implicit trust in the basic goodness of mankind. In front of her on a podium sat a wooden casket containing all that was left of her husband. Surrounding it were bouquets of flowers, some of them obviously ordered from Fargo, some very simply made of clippings from a garden. She asked for forgiveness for those who had done that terrible deed, “for it is only by offering forgiveness that we can, ourselves, be forgiven.” That was the secondary theme of her sermon. As she stood in front of the enormous crowd of people—for the schoolhouse had filled to overflowing, with many people gathered outside, she reiterated the simple prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi:
“Lord, make me a channel for thy peace. Where there is hatred, may I bring love. That where there is discord, I may bring harmony. That where there is error, I may bring truth. That where there is despair, I may bring hope. That where there is sadness, I may bring joy. That where there are shadows, I may bring light. For, Lord, I seek to comfort than to be comforted, to understand than to be understood, to love than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one achieves eternal life.”
At the conclusion of her sermon, she went outside and offered the same consolation to the people there.
Then we loaded the casket onto a train car and headed for Fargo, where there was a funeral home. We first located the cemetery—Riverview—which was lovely—filled with trees, shrubs, and flowers and situated near a river. Watching birds of many kinds and deer both large and small moving serenely around the tombstones, we thought it seemed a fitting place for Risto to rest. We found a small brick building central to the whole, which was certainly the office, grasped the sandstone railings, and entered an absolutely lovely room with a domed ceiling at least twenty feet high offering light, intricate cover molding encompassing the room, and a fire burning in the fireplace opposite the doorway. We were met by a Mr. Boulger, who introduced himself as director of the funeral home. Arrangements were made easily. And so, very simply, Risto was buried with only Milma and me there to mourn. “Write me as one who loved his fellow men,” I said quietly, thinking it might be an apt epitaph, again remembering my “Abou Ben Adhem.”
It was an experience I hoped never to repeat. But I learned a lot during that week, not the least of which was the strength of the woman whom we simply called “Milma.” She vowed to carry on her husband’s work, and she did so with grace and courage. I continued to stay with the Lappala family, because I sensed they needed me. I offered a view of the ordinary world for the children. For Milma, I offered a home to which she could return in order to find peace and solace. For Grandmother, who died later that year, I offered love. I had listened to her stories and written them down for Milma and the children to hold dear. It was the least I could do.
And I became complicit in the secret that Mr. Savolainen and the other members of the Virginia Church Board swore to keep—the story of Risto’s end. It is a secret I have kept to this day and that I share, praying that you will treat it with the reverence and kindness the Lappalas showed to me during all the years I lived with them. For it deserves no less.
13: Grandmother
When Milma and I returned from North Dakota, with only our memories wth us, we noticed a change in Grandmother. She seemed still very upset about what had happened to Risto; moreover, she seemed to have lost some of her control over the children.
They were delighted to see us, hugging and kissing both of us with real joy. They had spent a difficult week, having to face what had happened to their father essentially alone. Milma sat down with them even before we unpacked and told them about the reception we had received from all of the people at Hillsboro—the Lutherans as well as the Unitarians. Then she repeated to them, carefully looking each one in the eye as she did it, the essence of the sermon she had delivered in North Dakota. The children broke down, of course, sobbing their hearts out. And so did Grandmother. Neither of us had realized in our hurry to get to Hillsboro what we were asking of the children and of her. It took at least a week for us to regain some kind of order in the house and in ourselves, for Milma and I were still grieving, too.
Milma asked the children and Grandmother what they thought we should do in honor of Risto’s passing.
After several days of thinking, one evening just before dinner, the three of them sat down in the living room, asked their mother and grandmother and me to join them, and said they had a suggestion. It was that we should sit down holding hands, and each of us was to share a memory
of their father.
Their mother gathered the three of them into her arms, holding them close, then we did as they suggested. Each of us found a spot to sit, reached for each other’s hands and, taking turns, shared a memory of their father, who had gone away with such kindness and generosity, and would never be coming back.
Tellervo began in an unassuming way, “I will always remember Papa as he jumped into the river after sauna on Saturday nights. The water would be cold, but he’d be red from taking steam, and he always splashed around, swimming a little bit.”
Risto continued, “And he always took Daniel and me into the sauna with him so when he ran into the water, so did we! It was cold, but we were so hot from the steam room the cold felt wonderful. I’ll always remember that, too.” He gave Tellervo a hug before continuing, “My memories of him are tied to the games he played with us in the evening. I vow someday I’ll learn to play chess as well as he did. I never could beat him at any game—especially any card game. He always seemed to know what cards I had in my hand.”
“That came from playing bridge,” Milma said. “He was a masterful player.”
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