Stories

 

In the frost and famine years towards the end of the 1860s, many people starved to death in Lestijärvi, leaving various farms desolate. According to oral tradition, a starving person died in the huge oven of the Lappi house at that time. Timo Lappi (interviewed on 23 Ocober 2018) has heard the following story from Oiva Lappi’s son Seppo:

 

 “The Lappi house had an oven for 17 breads, heated with one-metre-long logs. When the famine years were at their worst, hungry people walked from one house to the next, asking for food. One day again, a starving man had arrived at the Lappi house and crawled into the large oven, in which there naturally were remains of grain and flour, which he intended to collect. Sadly enough, he was in such bad shape that he did not manage to get out and died in the oven. What a terrible story!”