… and she didn´t get an answer from him…                           

…John was born in 1879 on a small farm in Finland and quickly emigrated to the US at the young age of 22. His mother Maria wrote him, at first every month, and later perhaps several times a year. What they didn’t know was that John met a tricky woman soon after he established himself as a woodworker in his adopted country. This woman was insanely jealous and burned all letters from his old family. She wasn’t able to read them, but she was so much afraid that some old love would entice him to move back home. She convinced John that his family in Finland hated him because of his hasty departure.

John’s mother, Maria, back in Finland was my great-grandmother. She passed away on her birthday when my father was 7 years old. My father told me about all the evenings he was rocked to sleep, sitting in her arms listening to her singing the old song “Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight?”
For 31 years she didn’t hear from him , and she died without knowing what happened John.

When John was 58 years old and widowed, he decided to visit his home in Finland. Back home he found that both of his parents had passed on. But the most shocking for him was to then understand the nature of the woman to whom he had been married.

This is just one story about people from Finland moving to the USA and back again. There are today millions of people in “America” with a history of Finland!

To all these mothers and fathers, sons and daughters — To those who lived in despair, not knowing what happened to their loved ones — To them I dedicate this guitar! The Finnish Blue cross on white melted together in the Stars and Stripes of the USA. Not only in a “smooth interweaving” but also in “anguish and sorrow!”

As a child, John use to sit in the same red old sofa…