John HARJU

                   Born in St. Joseph Hospital.
Burried in Jim Cook Cemetery.

       Mother of 19 children of which 10 died in infancy.  Farmed in Shell River Township, Wadena County, Minnesota.  Came to US in 1885 with Mother Maria Ruona and Father Lars Pulju.
       Alma said that she wanted two dozen children.  Her wish was nearly fulfilled as she and Olaf had 19 children.  The sad aspect of this was that only nine of them lived to reach the age of ten.  Doctors were few and far between at this time.  This lack of medical supervision along with childhood diseases and epidemics took its toll.
       One of their sons, Evert, remembers having ot make a wooden box for one of his young brothers who had died.  The funerals were always held soon after the death and always in the living room.
       The first son, John, was born on September 19, 1896.  He was named after Olaf's father in Finland.  By this time Olaf and Alma had settled on a farm a few miles from the Lars Pulju's.  It was a wedding gift from Lars.  The Maaninga's last children were bron in 1922; they were twins but only one, Ailie, survived.
       Three years later Olaf died of a heart lesion and pulmonary TB on February 1, 1925.  Evert remembers the funeral being held at the house and Adam Kinnunen taking the body to Jim Cook Cemetery in a flat bed truck.  Olaf was laid to rest close to ten of his children who had preceded him.
       Alma continued to farm with her children on the farm.  As they grew up and married they were given a farm as a wedding gift by their grandfather, Lars Pulju.  Obviously he wanted his family to live nearby as all the farms were in Shell River Township.
-From "Maaninga Family History" by Curtis Maaninga.