Wilhelmina and Abram
Soon I’ll be making my annual move back to Otter Lake to reopen the cabins for the 2022 season. My thoughts in the spring often go to my great grandparents who were the original homesteaders at Otter Lake.
Kaisa Wilhelmina Salomonsdotter Tapani (b. 1849) married Johan Abram Olofsson Hannuniemi Kangas (b. 1847) in Lappi, Finland, where both were born and raised.
I find those lengthy names quite fascinating. In years past the Nordic countries used the patronymic surnames, which indicate the father of the child rather than the historic family lineage. So for my great grandmother, this explains the “Salomonsdotter” in her name (she was the daughter of Salomon Salomonsson Ylihuhta Tapani. Likewise, Salomon, my great great grandfather, was also the son of another Salomon (hence the name “Salomonsson” in his name). Today, Iceland is the only country that has retained these types of names.
Apparently in Finland a person must have a surname and at least one given name with up to three middle names permitted. They like a lot of names!
It’s also intriguing that many people in Finland (at least in the 19th and prior centuries) seem to use the second of their given names rather than the first. My great grandparents, Kaisa Wilhelmina and Johan Abram, simply went by Wilhelmina and Abram.
I have yet to search down any photos of Wilhelmina and Abram, but I often imagine how they may have looked when they emigrated to Michigan in the 1880s.
The unique wood slat boat shown here (affectionately known as “the ark”) carried my great grandfather Abram to Otter Lake via Torch Lake, Portage Lake and the Sturgeon River. It now makes its home at the Hanka Homestead Museum, which is only a short drive from Manninen’s Cabins. Hanka Homestead is a Keweenaw Heritage Site, celebrating the pioneering heritage of the area’s Finnish settlers.
The boat that my great grandfather, Abram Hannuniemi Kangas, came to Otter Lake on in 1892.
George & Jim Manninen, two of Abram’s five grandsons, with the “Ark.”