By Seth DuChene
Editor
Maire Karu admits she was more than a little surprised to get a letter from the Ambassador of Finland to Canada earlier this spring.
In fact, the letter sat unopened at her home near Adophustown for a few days before her son, Raymond, advised her they should find out what the note said.
She was even more surprised by what it contained: news that she would be receiving the First Class Medal of the Order of the White Rose of Finland from the country’s president, Sauli Niinistö, in recognition for her efforts during Finland’s war with the Soviet Union in the 1940s. The award was being handed out to all war veterans of Finland living abroad as part of that country’s centenary celebrations.
“I’m legally blind. (Raymond) read it to me, and read it to me a second time. I didn’t believe it. I cannot yet believe it,” she said.
Maire will be presented with the award at a ceremony in Toronto in September or October.
For about six decades, Maire has made her home in Canada. After living with her husband, Alfred, in Toronto for several years, they relocated to their Adolphustown cottage. Although Alfred passed away in 1999, Maire has continued to live in that now winterized and expanded cottage, thanks in large part to the support of family and friends and various community services.
That peaceful setting is a far cry from what Maire experienced in Finland, when the country was plunged into war as the Soviet Union attempted to expand its territory in the Baltic region. After seizing control of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, the Soviets set their sights on parts of Finland.
That led to on-again, off-again hostilities between the two countries until 1947. However, during that time, some 2,000 Estonian ex-pats volunteered to fight against the Soviets in the Finnish army; her future husband was among them. They’d be married in 1944.
Maire said she was a secretary with the defence forces, “so I was very close with everything.”
When asked what she did during the war, she laughs. “Not much. We didn’t have food. We never saw coffee in years, or other things. But, we lived through,” she said.
After hostilities ended, Finland was forced to turn over Alfred and others from the now-Soviet-controlled Baltic states. It was when Alfred was allowed to return to Finland to attend the funeral of one of his and Maire’s children that he thwarted the vigilance of a Soviet guard assigned to him and made good his escape to Sweden.
“My friends, without my knowledge, they already planned how they could get him out from Finland without going back to Russia, and that’s what they did,” she said. Maire said they kept her in the dark on the plan so any efforts to pry information from her by authorities would be unsuccessful.
“My whole city was behind him and helped him to escape,” she said.
They’d eventually be reunited, and they moved with their young family to Canada. Alfred, already an accomplished artist, continued to pursue that craft, along with picture framing, upon his arrival. They moved from Toronto to their Adolphustown cottage in the 1980s.
She says she hasn’t been back to Finland since 2005. Despite her absence, however, Finland clearly hasn’t forgotten her.
Nevertheless, it’s still a surprise for Maire.
“I never thought I’d get anything from Finland’s president,” she said.