the amount of land cleared from forest began to expand. But there also came settlers who wanted to go so far "that they wouldn't be in anyone's way." Those words were spoken by Jacob Aho, born in Alahärmä, Finland. He arrived on the scene in 1894, and with a 50-lb. sack of flour on his back, and a gun and a sharp axe in his hands, he set out on the winding footpath along Wolf Lake, making his way slowly to the 70-acre plot of shore

land he had bought. In the time since he settled down there, there

Peter and Kaisa Jokela's new home in Spruce Grove township, Becker county,
built in 1896.

have been four different `homes' on the same spot: first, a shelter of pine and fir boughs; then a log cabin, a little bigger and offering better shelter; then a house rebuilt and expanded as the family grew; and finally a house so big that when a neighbor once came to admire it, Aho could say that he had wanted it big enough to even hold meetings in, should the church be too small. This latest house was built in 1929, sixty feet long and forty wide and three stories high, with hallways at either end extending through the width of the building, with 23 rooms, as well as a sauna, storerooms, utility rooms. The barn, built across the yard, is a cement building 100 x 70 feet, its upper

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