EMBARRASS- Hundred-year-old Hinako Kuwamoto was busy picking out Christmas gifts at the Nelimark Homestead Museum on Saturday. Grandma, as many in Embarrass call her, was shopping with her granddaughter Laura Rosendahl, who herself is a grandmother, looking for gifts for their many relatives, both near and far and young and old. Still spry and active, Hinako was busy picking out Swedish dishcloth designs that reminded her of her home in Minnesota to mail to faraway relatives, as well as finding books for her many young relatives and neighbors.
The two were among the hundreds who stopped by to visit and to shop last weekend. The Nelimark, which is open weekends in the summer, reopens for two long weekends in preparation for the holiday season. The Nelimark will open again Dec. 7, 8, and 9, from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. each day.
“It is so fun to see people come back year after year,” said Jeanine Bjornrud, who is part of the Farmstead Artisans group that sponsors the holiday event.
“It is fun to come to the old house,” she said. “And it’s an easy, low-pressure, place to shop.”
The coffee and hot cider, along with a nice selection of home-baked treats set out on trays for visitors, is also a draw. Folks settled in with their coffee at two large tables, visiting with neighbors and making new friends.
“People just seem to like the atmosphere here,” Bjornrud said.
The Nelimark homestead sauna is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was one of the first buildings restored by the Embarrass historic preservation group Sisu Heritage. The house itself was run as a consignment shop, Sisu Tori, for several years. After that closed, a group of local crafters decided to see if Sisu Heritage would be interested in allowing them to sell handcrafted items, in keeping with the home’s history, in exchange for keeping the building open on weekends in the summer.
“We would provide hospitality in exchange for selling goods,” said one of the group’s founding members Verna Sutton. “We would keep up the spirit of the homestead.”
The home was a gathering spot for local residents in its early days. “Mrs. Nelimark always had fresh-baked pulla (Finnish cardamom bread, also called Finnish biscuit) and coffee for visitors. According to Nelimark family members, women were often dropped off at Nelimark’s house while the husbands did the weekly shopping at Lamppa’s and the coop store just a little way down the road.
“This is why we wanted to sell pulla, breads, jams and jellies,” said Verna Sutton, another of the artisans’ founding members.
The house is now part museum, part social center, and part craft shop. Visitors can learn about sauna history, rag rug weaving, the Lamppa General Store, and more while exploring the small two-story structure.
Artisan members Jeanette Mellesmoen and Cindy Scherer were busy checking out happy customers, who were purchasing items handmade by the approximately 20 members of the artisan group. The shop also stocks Scandinavian-themed books and gifts.
“We sell lots of books,” said Bjornrud. “Carol Knuti does a great job selecting titles that people want to buy.”
Many who stop by are coming for the fresh-baked breads and sweets. The most popular, both in summer and winter, is the pulla, baked by Sutton. She figures she brought over almost 80 loaves during the three days, and all of them sold. She also baked cinnamon rolls, a Norwegian specialty called Julekake, potica, and tea rings.
“It’s always hard to gauge how much to make,” she said. “I just guess.”
Her cranberry-wild rice bread has also become very popular. One of the artisans working at the event said she had put some away for herself as soon as she got there, because it always sells out.
Sutton learned to make pulla from the late Esther Norha, who taught a class at Ironworld (Minnesota Discovery Center) many years ago.
“I use her recipe,” she said. “I had never made a braided bread before.”
“The Finns love their pulla,” she said, “and it’s not just for holidays, but for every weekend.”
Sutton is not Finnish, but her mother’s family comes from the northern part of Norway, and her mother baked Norwegian specialties.
Sutton learned to bake from her own mother, whose specialty was Julekake, another cardamom-scented yeasted bread. She also makes her own jams and jellies that she uses in her baked goods.
“I get up at 3 a.m. to finish my baking,” she said, “so I can get it to the Nelimark by 9 a.m.”
Sutton will be baking again for the Dec. 7-9 event at the Nelimark, and said people are encouraged to call her to place any special orders at 218-984-2302.
Sutton is not the only baker with goods at the Nelimark. There is rye bread and a wide assortment of cookies and other sweet treats available.
The Nelimark sauna
The most characteristic feature of the Finnish homestead is the sauna, a place for the family and friends to share what they considered to be the “well-spring” of life and health. To the Finnish homesteaders, the sauna was more than a bath house. It was also used for washing and drying clothes, baking and cooking, butchering and smoking meat, and even as a spare bedroom for guests. The sauna was typically the first building built on the farmstead where the family lived until the “big house” was built.
The log sauna of Erick and Kristina Elizabeth Nelimark, built in the 1930s, was the largest sauna in the Embarrass community. It was a simple little structure, easy to build with poplar or pine logs, readily available in the surrounding forests.