The Finnish War Veterans History Project

During June 20th through June 24th, Brent Snodgrass and I traveled to Sudbury, Canada, to interview some Finnish war veterans. There was a large Veteran Association meeting taking place during the Finnish Canadian Grand Festival. We got 12 good interviews and consider the trip successful.

Tero Tuononen brought his Finnish field kitchen up to the event and the kitchen staff at the Finlandia Village cooked ham and pea soup in the wagon. It was great soup!

I am indebted to Brent for making this trip up there with me. He paid a lot of expenses on this trip out of his own pocket and I would not have been able to make this long drive (4000 miles round trip), nor do all the interviews, without him. Thank you Brent!

There are a few pictures from the Sudbury interviews posted here now. Shortly, I will be adding pictures from my trips to Florida where I interviewed another 10 veterans. In the near future, I will be posting some parts of the videos from the interviews so you can hear the vets talk about their experiences.

I would also like to thank Mrs. Maire Laurikainen, and her daughter, Mrs. Tuire Walsh, for their efforts at making our trip to Sudbury successful. They did a wonderful job organizing the events during the festival.

View of Finlandia Village and the Veterans memorial	Veteran Onni Keskinen	Pirkko and Olavi Lehtonen
Pirkko and Olavi Lehtonen during the war	Lotta Svärd member Helmi Vainio attends the Veterans Association meeting in Finnish costume.	Tero Tuononen (left) interviews Veteran Oiva Virkki at Finlandia Village
Veteran Veikko Kallio holding a wreath for the Finnish Veterans memorial	Veteran Olavi Lehtonen (on left) sits next to Veteran Oiva Virkki at the wreath laying ceremony	Tero Tuononen brought his famous Wartime Soup Kitchen up to Sudbury. Many gallons of pea and ham soup were served from this working wagon during the festivities.
Mr. Kallio and Mr. Markku Seppä. Mr. Seppä flew in from Helsinki where he is the Chairman of the War Veterans Association of Finland	Marshall Kregel interviewing Lotta Svärd member Saara Vesik.	Veteran Alvi Saatsi during the war. He is a Winter War veteran and celebrated his 90th birthday on Saturday, June 23rd.

This website developed by Marshall Kregel for the Finnish War Veterans History Project.