band's death. The family returned to Franklin in 1874, and Maria was married a third time, to Andrew Anderson (Antti Koivuniemi), who died in 1912, Maria two years later. 9

In the livestock inventories of the 1870s, horses were not unknown in the settlement, but they were still rare, Gust Friska being one of the few to own one. The farmers were gradually prospering, however, and the livestock on a particular farm could include as many as 25 cows, 60 sheep, plus a few chickens. Eggs could be sold for 10c the dozen, and a pound of butter could be swapped for 10 or 15c worth of staples. Potatoes, turnips and pumpkins had been added to the grain crops.

Oxen were still being used for plowing and as draft animals. John A. Rovainen has recalled how one autumn after the harvest he drove a team of oxen to New Ulm, thirty miles away, with a load of twelve sacks of wheat and ten one-pound sacks of wool. He left Franklin at three in the morning and reached his destination at nine in the evening. By light of the streetlamps he sold his load : the wheat at 25c the sack, the wool at 25c the pound. After sleeping a few hours, he had been ready by three in the morning to start the trip back home again.

In addition to John Rovainen's mother Maria, there were also others who were believed to have supernatural powers. According to legend, Nils Alarick Olson (Folkki), who came to Franklin in 1870, could protect a haystack from prairie fire by walking once around the stack. Another man, John Wittikko, was said to be able to foresee who was to die, as well as forecast future events. Such rumors about the Finns were enough to make their neighbors believe they were closer, even then, to the pagan gods of their Kalevala than to Christianity. 10

In reality, however, the Finns had brought along with them the sturdily pietistic Christian outlook based on the teachings of Lars Levi Laestadius. In the 1870s religious meetings were held in private homes, and it was noted that at a meeting in 1872 eighteen women and twenty-two men took communion. The first visit to Franklin by an ordained Finnish pastor was in 1875: from the nearest Finnish church, in Cokato, almost a hundred miles away, the Reverend Jacob Wuollet (Vuollet) and two lay members of his parish, Isak Barberg and John P. Marttala, made the trip to Franklin and conducted a service at which Matt Johnson, Matt Johnson Jr. and his wife, Mikko Heikka, Marjaleena Anderson, John Wuoppola's wife, Ole Johnson and

9. Ida Juhanna Rovainen interview, op. cit. 10. Barberg, V., op. cit.

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