Introduction
It’s a lovely day here in Southeast Ohio as I begin this journey across the page. I know there is a big difference between blogging and writing a book and that there are two kinds of people. There are those who talk about writing books and those who actually do it. I guess this is my chance to jump from one camp to the other.
I need to issue a comprehensive disclaimer here. Sometimes the “truth” of history is written by those who take the time to write it. Winners and survivors tend to be these writers. I must caution my readers to realize that this history—my history—is drawn from my subjective memory. These will be the stories that shaped my life as I remember them. As the tell reveals facts that might conflict with my recollections, I will make note of these. All that said, this is my story as I remember it, as seen through the prism of my mind’s eye.
I can do no better than that.
I think about the unseen forces that conspired to cause my forebears to leave the home places where their ancestors had always lived to come to America. Why would you want to leave a place where your family had always lived, where your DNA was imprinted on the trees, on the rocks, in the rivers and fields? Frankly, I don’t know. I could not imagine leaving the United States of America or even the little corner of the universe I have inhabited here in Ohio for more than a quarter of a century. My life has not always been kind or gentle, but most of my crises have been self-inflicted. I have not been singled out because of my religion or lack of it, because of my race or because of my status in society. These days I am always trying to make my world a better place, but I want to be able to do it here … in my world.
As a second-generation American, I know my grandparents on both sides of my family came here to seek a better life for themselves and their children. Did they believe in the American Dream? Was there ever such a thing to them, or was finding a home in America just better than hunger, persecution, or death in their respective home places?
Sad to say, the old ones who could answer these questions are now all gone. The cards and letters from my grandparents lie in the boxes my parents left me when they passed. They are still wrapped in the ribbon and twine they were wrapped in when my grandparents said goodbye to the old country almost a hundred years ago. These little notes stare up at me from their resting places like hieroglyphics. Along with their lives, their joys and dreams, sorrows and longings have been dust for a very long time. Those of the generation before me who could have seen through this glass darkly and brought the pictures into the light are now gone too.
Perhaps there was some disaffection in my family with living “the way things were.” Their diaspora led them across the Atlantic Ocean; mine led me away from a 9-to-5 bureaucracy and into a world of creative freedom that had very long legs indeed. From rehearsals and jams in small apartments and tiny back rooms to Monterey, Woodstock, Altamont, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the world of the Grammys, and beyond—this was the road I lived on. Indeed, this was my embryonic journey and much, much more!
1
Land of Heroes
Jaako Kaukonen, my grandfather, came over in the days just prior to the twentieth century. He came from a little town in Finland near the Bay of Bothnia called Ylistaro. There are still Kaukonens there, and Kaukallas and all sorts of Kaukas. What possessed him to make such a journey? I never had the opportunity to meet Jack, as he would call himself in America. He passed in Los Angeles in the mid-1950s. He now rests in Inglewood Cemetery near my grandmother Ida, my uncle Pentti, my dad, Jorma, and my mom, Beatrice. Tarmo, my other uncle, whom I never met, is buried in a military cemetery, also in LA. He died while he was still in the service, but we shall get to that.
My father told me that Jaako landed in Ellis Island and his brother, whose name I do not know, landed in Boston. The two Kaukonen brothers never saw each other again in America … ever. Dad told me that they wrote and would occasionally call, but that was it. Finns are a stoic lot.
At the dawn of the twentieth century it became profitable to extract copper ore from the deep pit mines of Gogebic County in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The workers came mainly from Sweden, Germany, England, Italy, Poland, and Finland. The Brits were mostly from Cornwall. My dad and his Finnish buddies affectionately called them Cousin Jacks. The Cousin Jacks brought pasties with them … one of the great culinary inventions of all time. When the men headed down into the pits, their tiffin carriers would be filled with, among other things, pasties, which in addition to being really tasty stay hot for a long time. There is nothing like a hot lunch when you’re a mile beneath the surface of the Earth.
Ida Palmquist, my grandmother, was from Hanko, Finland, a little seaport town just north of Helsinki. Finland was the eternal battleground between the Swedes and the Russians. Kaukonen is very definitely a Finnish name, whereas Palmquist is from the Swedish heritage that was present then in Finland and still is. Ida came to Ironwood, Michigan, as did Jaako. There was work in the mines and languages they all knew. I don’t know where she first landed in America—somewhere, obviously, because there she was.
Did she and Jaako meet immediately? I don’t know and I wouldn’t know who to ask. I do know that at some point before she was married, she worked in Montana for a couple of years as a domestic. Yep, Grandma Ida was a maid on a ranch. I’ve got all the postcards she wrote back to her friends in Ironwood when she was working there. Finland to Michigan to Montana and back to Michigan was like crossing galaxies in the early 1900s. She was obviously not afraid to travel great distances to find work and her place in the world.
In any case, Ida returned to Gogebic County and she and Jaako got married. My dad, Jorma Sr., was born on October 24, 1910. His brother Tarmo was born in 1912 and his brother Pentti in 1914. Jaako realized that there had to be a better way to make a living than breaking rocks looking for copper ore in the depths of the Earth. He became a tailor. He set up shop on East Aurora Street in Ironwood across from the Carnegie Library. My father learned to speak English at that library. My grandfather Jaako wound up owning much of the city block across the street.
Much more recently, in 1993, as my dad was becoming mobile again after his first stroke, I was blessed to be able to go on a “roots” trip with him to his old home place. Many of his old friends were still alive then, and to see my father reconnect with them brought the past right up to the present moment. There was Robert Lee the Norwegian. When he was young Robert was a ski flyer, a particularly Norwegian version of ski jumping. “Do you want to see the big jump at Copper Mountain?” he asked. Of course I did. This was a ski flying hill, one of the largest in America. Bob knew a shortcut through the woods. He had a large 4 × 4 and planned on going off road. “Do you want me to drive?” I asked the old man. “NO! You will go too slow!” Da Yoopers are a tough lot. I also got to meet Francis Ann, who was my dad’s girlfriend when he was thirteen before the Kaukonens left for LA.
I’m going to pause for a moment here and introduce you to another Jorma oddity. I’ve been journaling for a number of years and any time you see passages in italics, they will be from my diary. I’m glad that I kept all this stuff; it’s hard to re-create these kind of fresh insights.
Saturday, February 19, 2005, Hillside Farm, Meigs County
I spend lots of time writing about recollections of the past. The journey is not always pleasant, but it is my journey. The road to enlightenment is slow and incomplete at best, but at least I’m making progress. My life today is rich beyond belief. That is not to say that the road is without bumps or that I don’t just frigging lose it sometimes. I do … but not often … not like I used to. Today is a great day … cleaning the barn … looking at old family memorabilia … throwing much away … saving some. Dad looks at me in a picture from Hancock, Michigan. His face is twisted from his stroke … he is not smiling … the trip to the UP has stirred deep memories in him I can only imagine. Behind that thoughtful look lies a latent twinkle that would say sarcastically, “What’s it to you?”
As it turns out, Dad, it all meant a lot to me … and still does.
There was the old Finn Hall where Dad learned to play the mandolin and the violin; there were the black agate beaches where he played as a kid; there was the old Kaukonen family home on Garfield Street.
I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.
What the heyho was going on? Lots, obviously. The Kaukonens were trying to find their way in America, and it took them from Ironwood, Michigan, to Tucson, Arizona. I don’t know much about this time except that it didn’t work out. They went back to Ironwood again, all five of them, and they remained there until 1923 when they moved to Lincoln Heights in East LA.
The Kaukonen family was on their way to San Francisco—at least at first. In those days, a transcontinental trip was a major undertaking. I have no idea what kind of car they would have owned that could hold five people and all their earthly possessions. In any case, they set out for San Francisco. In an era before interstate highways (and paved roads in general) this was a heck of a project.
Now I love to travel, always have. I guess I came by it naturally. When I’m driving somewhere it is always an existential adventure. Time can stand on its own when you’re on the road. I always felt that whether riding a motorcycle or driving a car, you are the captain of your fate seeking the far places.
But automobile travel in the 1920s was way beyond seeking a far place of great adventure. This was a momentous voyage! In that spirit, Jaako, the skipper of that little four-wheeled ship, ran into some difficulties. Was it weather by the Front Range in Colorado? Lack of roads in the Rockies? I do know that they headed southwest and wound up in Lincoln Heights, East LA, instead of San Francisco and that was that. My dad and his brothers grew up to be Angelenos in what is considered to be the oldest neighborhood in LA outside of downtown.
Wow! So here are these Finns. In East LA. Jaako started another custom tailoring business. He wound up making clothes for movie stars such as Douglas Fairbanks. The Kaukonens may not have been rich, but they were comfortable and the three kids always had cool clothes.
Jaako became Jack, Tarmo became Leonard, and Pentti became Pen. My dad was still Jorma, but it was important for the boys to be Americans, and if this meant mostly shedding Finnish names, so be it. It wouldn’t be until the 1950s that Dad really started to rediscover his Finnish roots.
The Great Depression came and Dad and his two brothers went to Trona, California, to mine borax. Ironic. The Finnish family left Ironwood, Michigan, and the mines, moved to Southern California, and the kids wound up working in mines.
The climate, though, was the antithesis of the Upper Peninsula. Trona in the Mojave Desert is a long way from Gogebic County and Lake Superior. The boys worked for the American Potash Company on scaffolds on the desert and in Lake Searles. Mining doesn’t seem like a lot of fun no matter where you find it, but there’s nothing wrong with a gig. According to family legend, Dad fell off a scaffold and broke his hip, which ended his borax mining career.
My dad went to UCLA, and in 1932 he was an usher at the Summer Olympics. Tarmo and Pentti were both talented artists. Tarmo was also a figure skater of some accomplishment and at some point had a hand in the training and handling of Leo, the MGM lion. At least that’s how family lore has it.
On July 14, 1936, Jorma Ludwig Kaukonen met Beatrice Love Levine at a Bastille Day party somewhere in southern Maryland. Dad always loved to play tennis and I guess he cut a dashing figure that day in his tennis whites with his racket in his hand. That’s what I heard, anyway, and it helped their marriage last more than sixty years. I was born four years after they were married, but we’ll get to that anon.
Beatrice Love Levine’s parents were Vera and Ben. My grandmother’s family was from the St. Petersburg area in Russia. As I was writing this, I remembered that I knew of some distant relatives in Ellington, Connecticut, where that part of the family took root in America. I went to the Internet, of course, to find a cousin named Rose Rychling. Sad to say, I found that she passed at eighty-three on December 6, 2015. I guess we won’t be talking for a while. When my mom died on May 8, 1998, there were a flurry of connections with relations who were distant to me … and then they were gone. My life went on and I lost track. I know there are only so many hours in the day, but this one is on me.
So Vera landed at Ellis Island like so many. I don’t know when. The name Haskevitch was just too much for the immigrations officer to deal with, so she became a Joseph. Easier to spell, I would assume. Some of her family became Haskells—again, easier to spell. What prompted my grandparents to come to this country? I have no idea. When I was younger and could have had this discussion with them I simply accepted their quaint old world qualities as their norm and focused only on my place in the world.
There are stories though. In the St. Petersburg area, Jews were not allowed to own property in the time of the czars. But somehow Vera’s father had an “arrangement” with a wealthy Gentile nobleman and they owned thousands of acres of timberland in what we know as Karelia. It seems she lived a life of some privilege. That said, she somehow ran afoul of the authorities and wound up in a gulag. It is said that one of the family’s servants took her place and she escaped. Upon returning home, she found that Cossacks had trampled her brother and killed much of the family. Keep in mind, this is before the Russian Revolution. On her way out of Russia—so the story goes—she dynamited the home of the headman of the shtetl, escaped Russia, and found her way to America. “When you are young it is good to be audacious,” she would say with a wry smile.
My grandfather Benjamin S. Levine’s family came from a shtetl on the Dnieper River. His father, Shmuel, was a patriarch of some note and had already brought much of the family over to Ellington, Connecticut.
In 1897, Jacob and Shifra Rosenberg, a Russian-Jewish immigrant couple newly arrived in the United States, bought a piece of land near Crystal Lake, approximately fifteen miles northeast of Hartford, Connecticut. The Rosenbergs were the first Jewish farmers in the Connecticut rural area known as Rockville-Vernon Ellington. According to the Ledger of the Jeshurun Society of Russian Refugees Who Settled on Farms in the Rockville-Vernon Ellington Area (a Hebrew document written in 1905 by Shmuel Levine, my great-grandfather), the Rosenbergs created their homestead “through the labor of their own hands and by the sweat of their brow!” In the next few years, the Levines and other Russian-Jewish immigrant families followed the Rosenbergs. “Armed with few belongings but with a strong will and a determined spirit, we searched for a place to settle and through the righteousness of the Lord [we] chose this place … the Connecticut valley … in the area of Rockville-Vernon Ellington.”
My grandfather Ben was not a farmer, but he was one of many children and they all worked on the tobacco farm. There is a little Torah in the shul by the Orthodox graveyard in Ellington scribed by my great-grandfather Shmuel.
How interesting that Shmuel is only three generations back yet I, Jorma, know so little about his life. The ripples of memory dissipate so quickly and a hundred years can swallow it all. My son, Zach, will never really know anything about my parents, nor will my daughter, Izze. Izze is fortunate to have a relationship with my wife Vanessa’s mother, Virginia. As a result Izze will always have that grandma in her life and in her memory.
Copyright © 2018 by Jorma Kaukonen
Foreword copyright © 2018 by Grace Slick
Afterword copyright © 2018 by Jack Casady