farmers turning to truck gardens, others to orchards or berries, which the earlier farmers had shrugged off as "kid stuff."

Cooperative Activity : Toward the end of the 1920s dairy farming in Embarrass had reached its most splendid point and had brought about a security often lacking in earlier decades. The depression which followed, however, again caused a drop of more than 50% in farm production prices within a three year period. If their security seemed threatened, the Finns were also protected by two factors : first, most of them did not have big debts, and second, they did have their own cooperative enterprise.

The beginnings date back to 1909, when the Embarrass Cooperative Association was founded: it joined the Cooperative Central in 1919. The beginning, naturally, was modest, with the first quarters in a small storeroom beside the railroad. There sales were begun, with Matti Ropponen in charge. Later, with the opening of new quarters owned by the cooperative itself, Gust R. Päivärinta became the first permanent business manager. He has had several successors, among them Helmer Märsylä and Lauri Passi, who both served for relatively long periods. With an increase in the volume of business, branches were established in Tower and Vermilion townships, but the Tower branch was closed down after a few years. In addition to the usual lines of supplies, the cooperative sold machinery and electrical supplies, building materials, and forest and farm products. It was this fact of dealing in agricultural products, as well as through its short-lived milling program and dairy project, which made this local cooperative an important factor in keeping many Finnish farming families from starvation and bankruptcy during the depression years. The cooperative used to supply food, and it accepted food for sale when individual storekeepers had stopped all purchases from the farmers. As a result, very few Finns lost either their farms or their possessions in those difficult years of the early 1930s.

For Embarrass, those difficult years brought a change in the dairy farming picture. Added to the economic pressure was the fact that increasing numbers of the younger generation moving to the cities and into the mines left the rural areas without sufficient manpower to carry on. The result was that more and more of the big cattle barns were left empty; and fields cleared with such backbreaking labor began to revert to scrub.

Finnish Organizations in Embarrass : At the time when the Finns first began to settle in Embarrass, the pastors of parishes in the region rarely made visits to this new community. However,

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