Stories

The writer Wava Stürmer bought a small house at Satamakatu in the 1960s in order to use it as her writing room. Local amateur as well as professional writers would gather to discuss and create ideas there. They organised, for example, presentations in schools and bus tours around Ostrobothnia. Pupils, who were mainly familiar with deceased writers, now had a chance to meet living ones. At the time, the old wooden houses in Skata were under the threat of being demolished and replaced by blocks of flats. Stürmer and other cultural activists would write in newspapers and appeal for the preservation of the area. (Interview with Wava Stürmer on 12 November 2018)

In her poem collection Det är helvete att måla himlar (1970, 62–63), Stürmer portrays the bygone life at Satamakatu and Loveret as follows: Here used to live the “American widow” Kvastkajs with her seven children, the Kronholms who sold illegal spirits, and the one-armed Emma with her Frans. This was also the home of the tiled-stove builder Kåhlsten and the mother of Runeberg. Satamakatu was the main street where tar carts would rattle…