have ceased. To be sure, farming at such times does not bring in much money, either, but a farmer is happier even than a miner or a factory worker." 8

However, farming also had its ups and downs. Sometimes the harvest would be very meager; sometimes the harvest was so good that prices fell with a crash to cause other crises. "A new boom came and the price of wheat rose to $1.40 the bushel," Josefiina Kästämä recalled,9 "and everyone rushed to get more land into cultivation, and new threshers were needed. Some lived on credit, others used their credit- to furnish bond for their neighbors. Those who lived that way were soon ruined and dragged others into ruin with them. My parents had been able to save $700 in three years from their modest earnings, but then my father gave $115 to an old neighbor to clear 20 acres more land for us. When that was done we had to get horses to plow this land, and the horses were bought. The next year we harvested 1,100 bushels of wheat, and if the prices had remained firm there would have been a good return, but the price fell to 40c, and my father suffered nothing but setback. It meant complete bankruptcy for this homestead, with a $300 mortgage due. I was 20 years old and had to leave home to find some kind of work; I left with a heavy heart, leaving behind my parents, who had worked so hard on this half-finished, debt-ridden property, to live out a year of grace."

And when war came, the Finns had to play their role, too, and in the Spanish-Ameican War three young Finns from New York Mills saw service: William Koski, Ludwig Peterson and Gust Siira. According to the newspaper, the Siirtolainen, about 300 Finns took part in that war, "and more would have gone but couldn't, because they didn't speak English." They were included in all branches of the armed services, and a few even became officers; some lost their lives in the landings in Cuba: three died in the explosion of the Maine, three died of fever in camp. When World War I came, 120 Finns of New York Mills were called in the draft.

Religious activities: As soon as there were four Finnish families living in New York Mills, they, staunch Laestadian Lutherans as they all were with one exception, began to hold prayer meetings in each other's homes, and in 1877 Israel Hagel, a preacher of the Apostolic Lutheran church, came to hold a formal service. A good

8. Päivälehti, 10 September 1921

9. Esiraivaajien Muisto. Commemorative program for festival in New York Mills, 20 August 1939. New York Mills, 1939

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