The Sauna at Twelve-Foot: Collected Writings

By Marlene Mattila Stoehr

In The Sauna at Twelve-Foot, Marlene Mattila Stoehr's poems and prose pieces capture Minnesota following the peak of Finnish immigration into the state, with evocative descriptions of the close-knit immigrant community of Sebeka, Minnesota. In a landscape of alfalfa fields, blueberry woods, and corn stubble, a parade of neighbors assembles each Saturday evening to "take sauna." They gather on the banks of the Red Eye River, at the deep spot known simply as Twelve-Foot. In wintertime, children race down frozen cow-manure piles on hand-carved wooden skis. A party-line telephone rings to deliver news of a hard loss.

The collection includes the author's Finnish ancestral emigration stories and is an important contribution to Minnesota's women's and immigrant history. In a desperate search for food during devastating famine, a family skied 400 miles along frozen rivers to reach the Arctic Ocean. Other stories tell of emigration from Finnish-speaking communities in Norway to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and attempts to unravel mystery surrounding the death of a great-grandparent in Michigan's 1895 Osceola mine fire.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0CVL5HC9F
• ISBN13: 9798989499120
• Release Date: January 2024
• Publisher: River Box Press
• Length: 118 Pages
• Weight: 0.37 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"