Re: Niemisto to Niemi Virginia Minnesota
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In reply to:
Re: Niemisto to Niemi Virginia Minnesota
12/08/01
Im going to add this here.....the same post I have put on other sites....but, since the first post here, I know now that my Grandfather was legally Matt E. Niemi...and not Matthew.
This seems like a dead end....but, I see we are getting more Niemi's to post.
Feel free to dig up anything at all you can Sean....I have been to Ellis Island Records.....and I believe your ggg's might be there....coming to Hibbing..and Buhl...I saw some Niemi's that were not familiar to me.....being sponsored by folks in those cities.Also a Henriksson in Brainerd....all leads lead me no where.
Here is the updated history of my clan:
I am looking for any information re: my Grandfather from Finland.He came as a young man to the United States......with cousins I am told....he must have arrivedat Ellis Island before 1914, when I believe he and my Grandmother were married.
Matt E. Niemi born in Finland married Anna Elizabeth Ikola in Eveleth, or Cherry (Forbes?) Minnesota about 1914.They had two children, Helen Niemi Baratta, in 1916.And, my Father, Walter Henry Niemi, in 1918.
Matt worked in the Iron Mines in Eveleth, Minn and in 1921 he was in a cave-in accident where he was buried in the earth, and all his bones were crushed.He was hospitalized at Nopeming Sanitorium after the fact, and my Grandmother went to work as a cook, to help pay the bills, in the Nopeming Facility, in Otter Tail County, Minnesota.
Matt E. Niemi died in 1927, when my Dad was just a child....and after that...it was not a topic of conversation......my Grandmother remarried (Comeau) in '34, and I never learned the story of the young man from Finland, who was looking for a life in America.
I have not found anything re: Matt E. Niemi in the Ellis Island records, the manifests show Matti Niemis.......and I have thought that Matt E. and Matticould have been understood as the same name, with a strong Finnish accent to the people at the Records dept in Ellis Island.
I will send for a death certificate to St. Paul after the holiday....and try and see if they have marriage certificates.I know that my Grandmother was a citizen, and when she married, she lost her citizenship because she married an alien.They were both taking Citizenship classes about the time he was injured...she got her papers, he never did.
I have been told that one of the cousins that he arrived with was a Emil Niemisto....Niemi being the shortened version of the name.There are no relatives to ask anymore......making this Grandfather and his ancestors in Finland even more difficult to find.
If anyone has any info on the young men coming to America from Finland between about 1909 and 1913......I would really appreciate it.
Matt was a very musical fellow, I was told, playing the accordian, and singing and dancing.As, my grandmother met him at the school house Saturday night dances, as he played and danced Finnish and Russian music.They fell in love and married.
My Grandmother's Grandmother was a Kaukanen, her Father Ikola, and her husband Niemi.