The imposing brown statue that stands at the outskirts of Menahga, Minnesota is a landmark I passed by dozens of times as a child. My grandparents lived by a nearby lake. The legend of St. Urho may have been created by a man I never met, but the statue itself was partially designed by my mother, who passed away when I was 20.
Throughout my childhood, I believed St. Urho was a widely known figure in Finland. The Irish brought over stories of their saints when they immigrated to America. I assumed Finns did the same. As an adult I met Ossi, an Interpals user from Ivalo, Finland, who told me,
“We don’t know him here. But the story is epic!”
To my surprise, I learned St. Urho was a myth created by Finnish-Americans in the 1950s. Hardly ancient history from their homeland.
Finnish people came to the US relatively late compared to other Europeans. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Finnish immigrants began to settle in northern Minnesota, a place very similar to the home they left. Most were farmers, though some also found work in sawmills and on railroads.
St Urho was created 50 years later by Richard Mattson in Virginia, Minnesota. He was working at a local department store when an Irish coworker jokingly asked why Mattson’s culture didn’t have any well-known saints. There, the story was born. St. Urho’s day developed its own customs, like wearing purple and green and drinking wine to celebrate the grape crops that were saved from a plague of grasshoppers.
In the mid 1970s, a contest was held to determine what the mythical man would look like. The winner was a 21 year old art student from Bemidji State University. The statue was later sculpted by Jerry Ward, a chainsaw sculptor, and brought to the edge of Menahga where it still stands today.
I have always felt disconnected from my Finnish-American background, partially due to the constant bullying I faced for having a “weird” name and grandparents who didn’t speak English well, and partially because of the physical distance from home as an adult. Still, it makes me happy to know that something my mom created lives on, and through it, so does she.
