Meet Sanna Marie Salimaki Kangas

I started this blog post in July, and never got around to posting it. Remember the wonderful huge beautiful antique barn loom that I got from a museum in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan? I found out more details about the original owner from a telephone conversation with her grandson.

What follows are from the notes from a phone conversation with the grandson Ron Kangas, July 2, 2021 He and his wife Arlene followed up with mailing me some photographs and more history about his grandmother, the original owner of this beloved Finlander Barn Loom...  now dubbed the "Sanna Kangas Barn Loom".

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Her name was Sanna Marie Salimaki Kangas. She was born February 22nd 1874, and passed away at the age of 78 on June 9th 1952. 

She came from Finland in 1908 with her husband Matt, (I also found references to a Maddy or Mathias?) and they emigrated here with two children to Ironwood, Michigan. (located in the far western area of the Upper Peninsula).

Once settled in, she had 3 more children while making their home in Ironwood.

She had the arched root design barn loom built for her in 1910 by a Finnish craftsman woodworker in the area, and it was built to her specifications.  It cost her $20 which was a large amount of money back in 1910!

The loom was kept out in the wood barn as it was too large for the house. It appears in the background in the photos up above. When she wasn't weaving on it herself, she would rent the use of it to other people, who would come into her wood barn to weave their own rugs, and pay her for the warp they used.

Grandson Ron remembers sitting with his little butt on the bench next to her as she wove the rugs. He would help with cutting rags and winding shuttles. He remembers that it was a pleasant cherished time to be able to spend with his grandmother out in the wood barn, weaving on the loom.

She never learned English and spoke her native Finnish, as did most in her community. She had a Finnish newspaper delivered once a week and that was her connection with the Olde Country.

She was a Deaconess for many years for the Zion National Lutheran Church.

She was known in the community to sit on her porch in her rocking chair, singing Finnish Bible songs. She would knit thick wool hunting socks for the men and watch for friends and neighbors to come and pick her up to drive her places. She never drove herself and didn't own a car. 

The house had no running hot water, just a cold water tap into the house. There was no refrigerator, instead they used a cool root cellar to store their food. In the winter they would use a pail on the porch to keep food cold. They had a large garden and she canned vegetables. Her favorite thing to do was pick blueberries. They would travel to Wisconsin and pick buckets and buckets of blueberries. Then she would preserve them in jars, and open them as a special treat in the winter. She would pride herself to open up a jar and ladle them out into bowls on the kitchen table for everyone to enjoy. It was her special dessert.

Her husband passed away in 1937. He was a miner in the local iron mines. After his passing, she always wore black.

Grandson Ron remembers going to live there during the Depression. He and his father helped to build the sauna of cedar logs and working hard hauling gravel in wheel barrels for the concrete mixer. As he grew into a young man, his father decided that they needed to have a different life than becoming miners like Sanna's husband. So the grandson Ron and his family moved far away to the big city of Detroit.

Grandson Ron remembers going up to visit, and enjoying his time with his grandmother and her home, which he missed dearly.

She lived in the same house all of those years  and remained alone in the house until she passed away in 1952. 

The loom was packed up and moved down to the son Rick and daughter-in-law Felona's home in Detroit. Felona wove it for a number of years. Here is a photo of Felona, and I wonder if she learned to weave from Sanna, or if there were also weavers in her own family?

After Rick and Felona passed away, Ron needed to clear out his parents house and was looking for a museum in the Upper Peninsula that would take the loom. He was willing to deliver it there if any museum was willing to take it. He said he wrote letters to all of them across the U.P. and the only one that would take it was the Menominee Range Historical Foundation Museum in Iron Mountain, Michigan. This town was located 130 miles from Ironwood, the town where Sanna had lived and where the loom had been constructed. But at least it was a museum that was willing to take it. This was back in 1992. 

Ron tried one time to visit the loom at the Museum. The museum is located in three different buildings in the Iron Mountain area. He purchased the admission tickets to all three buildings but only two were open that day. Sadly, there was nobody available to open the third building where the loom was located. So he never did get to see it on display.  This is how it looked on display at the museum:

Very old and traditional barn loom construction

  

That was the last he ever heard of the loom. 

Until I contacted him. 

Now he is hoping to stop by and see the loom in person on one of his visits from Lower Michigan, looping around through Wisconsin and up to visit relatives in the Upper Peninsula. I told him he was more than welcome to come and see the loom and sit his little butt on the bench... just like he did when he was a grandchild, alongside Sanna as she wove her rugs.

~~~~~~~~

The loom remained on display until 2021, when the museum had to condense its displays and move them to another location. They did not have the volunteer manpower to dismantle it, move it, and erect it correctly, much less the new space for it to be moved onto. They started advertising it on Facebook Marketplace. My weaving friends Rosie Dupuy in Missouri and Linda Baldwin in Tennessee spotted it and sent it immediately to me. They insisted I could not pass this up, and I needed to go get it NOW. It was only 75 miles from me. 

That is when I came into possession of the loom, for the price of a donation to the museum.

Here is my blog post about getting the loom:

https://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com/2021/07/finlander-barn-loom.html

After bringing it back home to Oconto, I wove off the half finished rug, and sent it as a gift to the grandson, Ron and his wife Arlene of Detroit, Mi. 

I had to rearrange the She Shed to get it to fit, but it was worth it to get the loom into a clean dry environment and useable again.  I did have to reluctantly sell off another loom for more space.  But as they come and go, I make sure the looms go to good homes where they will also be loved and used.

I cleaned up the wood, and removed the notched bar on the side that had been added on sometime during it's lifetime. Perhaps when Felona had it? I changed all of the old sisal barn rope with new fresh cotton window sash cord. I cleaned up the original reed and beater, and replaced the apron. I replaced the pipes with wooden dowels. I also added, with the help of my husband, sectional rakes to the back beam and notched brackets on the top of the castle to give more adjustable positions for the overhead beater. We also added a heavy steel handle to the front of the beater, made by Jim Burkett of Beloit, Wisconsin. 

Then I wound on 45 yards of new warp to start weaving.

The rest of the loom is in its original shape. It weaves well and true and square. It has a happy home, being used to weave rugs again.  The grandkids love to come over and help beat the rugs.  The harder the better, and it creates a firmer rug. 

Claire's little butt can fit on bench,

right alongside of me. 

Just like grandson Ron's butt fit next to Sanna.

I'm sure Sanna Marie Salimaki Kangas would be pleased.

~~~~~~~~

On the bedroom window installation topic, we are waiting for a part for the siding nail gun to arrive in the mail.  Once he gets that, we can close up the rest of the wall on the outside, sealing it in for the upcoming winter. 

Weaving Away on "The Kangas Loom"

My apologies to my other blog readers who like to read about camping and motorhome stuff.  I promise I will do some posts on that, especially the last three campgrounds we went to.   But for now I am blogging about the barn loom, and adding links to my loom restoration and rug weaving groups on Facebook. I promise, more camping and RVing themed posts will come soon! 

I received some wonderful emails from the gentleman and his wife who donated the old Finlander barn loom to the museum. They were very grateful to receive the rug that I completed from the half woven one left on the loom.  We are not sure who started it.  But I completed it and sent it on to them.   They are going to send me some more information about their grandmother, Sanna, and some photos!  How exciting! 

In their emails, they have dubbed me: "Karen, Owner of The Kangas Loom".  So I guess from herewith forward,  the Finlander Barn Loom will be known as The Kangas Loom.  I like that. 

Last night I wound up 60 turns of warp, equaling about 40 yards.  It's quite a technical process to get it all on evenly and under perfect tension.  The more perfect the warp string is put on, the more perfect the final rug turns out. 

Here is my warping setup:  a rack with 24 spools of warp, a tension box clamped to a sawhorse, and then the actual loom, pushed across the room to access the back side.  Once it all set up, then I can push it back to the windows on the left side of the pic. 

Section by section, I wind on the warp.  Carefully watching the threads, making sure there aren't any knots, and they wind up evenly with no "snow drifts" that hamper the overall circumference of each layer as it winds on. The arches of plastic tubing help guide the threads into each section, without jumping the pegs into the next section.  I "leap frog" the tubes from peg to peg as I move across the beam.

As each section reaches the same 60 turns, using a little digital thumb counting device from my friend Rosie Dupuy, a weaver of Bethel Missouri.  She stores them in these little tins from mints.  How cute! 

I carefully tape the order of the threads down to the beam. I have learned that doubling the tapes works even better.  And recently I have added a third piece of tape right where I cut the threads free.  Then as I remove them one at a time to thread them into the loom, they are all in perfect order. No criss crossing, no tangles. 

Ahhhhh a perfectly wound warp! It really makes my heart go Pitter Pat!  I love to touch it and feel how even and symetrical it is. I know, I am weird, but sometimes the littlest things about weaving give me such enjoyment.  

At this point, it was getting late. I would have to wait until the next morning to start the actual loom threading of the heddles and sleying of the reed.  It's hard to quit and go to bed. Years ago, I would stay up until the middle of the night, working on things like this. And then get up and go work an 8 hour day, take care of 2 teens, sometimes 4 teens on the weekends, keep up a house and meals and laundry and dogs and all those tasks.  Now that we are retired, I learn to pace myself, and get some sleep.  LOL. 

In the morning it was time to start "tying on"!   That is where I take each little thread and tie it in order, onto the corresponding thread coming off the harnesses.  This is the leftover warp from the last rug woven.  By leaving the ends hanging, in order, on these two suspended lease sticks, I can just tie on the threads and not have to rethread each and every one through the harnesses and reed.  A real timesaver. 

Bit by bit, strand by strand, I tie each one one.  Carefully untaping each section. I also count each section of 24 threads to be sure one isn't accidentally wedged down between the pegs.  That can cause a REAL snarly situation, plus the count of threads would be off by 1 thread at the front end. 

Because the last rug was only 24 inches wide, and I wanted the new ones to be wider, I had to tie up 72 more string heddles.  It takes time, and I carefully tied each one on the "heddle tying jig" that came with the loom.  For now we only tied them with warp string, doubled up.  But I think in the future I will order some Swedish Seine Twine and tie ones that will last forever. 

 

Little granddaughter Claire, 4 years old, was here to help me.  What a great place to sit and tie heddles, right on the loom bench seat.  Together.  Just like the grandson of the original loom owner Sanna did. The grandson Ron, now in his 80's, remembers setting his little butt on the loom bench next to his grandmother.  

Once the 72 heddles were in place, I had to carefully guide the remaining bouts of new warp through them, one at a time.  Alternating the threads between harness one and harness two, the pattern of every other thread is obtained.  Being careful... because if even one thread is mixed up or criss crossed or repeated instead of alternated, it can take some time to correct by pulling them back out till you reach the mistake and start over.  

This morning it was finally time to start weaving an actual rug!  I start with a few rows of scrap to get the warp spread out, evenly tensioned and checked for any errors.  Then I weave in some creamy white "header threads" that later will be folded over and hemmed along the ends of the rug. 

Little Claire hopped right up on the bench, just like 80+ year old Ron told us he did as a boy, by his grandmother Sanna's side.  Carrying on the tradition of teaching and learning and enjoying the creation of something pretty and useful. 

All of my seven grandchildren have learned to weave.

Claire is the youngest, and first to weave on this particular loom.

Just look at that little butt,

next to my big Grandma butt. 

She helps with the rags and tells me what colors are coming next.  She chooses which random shuttle is next for the rug, and helps untangle the rags if they get caught on the rod below.  

She likes the idea of threads going Under Over Under Over. and looks closely at what we are creating.   Steve snapped pics of us so we could weave together.

Before we know it,

another rug is born! 

We are weaving this particular rug in the Finnish tradition of thinner rags and in a hit n miss fashion.   Sometimes I weave thicker rugs with doubled rags or a thicker strip to start with.  Sometimes I weave with thick strips of wool blankets. Sometimes with chained up sock loopers of factory waste.  Sometimes I weave with all denim fabric.

Last summer I got boxes and boxes of prepared rag balls of thinner fabrics from a retired weaver, so we have a lot of thin rag balls to use up... and a lot of warp on the loom to use them up on.  

And The Kangas Loom weaves again.