A Hundred-Year-Old Sea Captain’s House Connects Siblings and Generations in Lokalahti

The sage-green house in the village center of Lokalahti blends into the lush late-summer nature so well that it is barely visible from the road.

Yet there it stands, firmly rooted on the spot where the siblings’ sea captain grandfather and his wife built it as their family home in 1914.

Now in the family for the third generation, the house radiates history and stories. It has witnessed wartime hardships as well as the joys of continuity and new life.

– My grandmother was thirty years younger than my grandfather, and she was widowed when my mother was just a year old, Heli explains the family’s course of life in their more than a hundred-year-old home.

The couple’s younger child, Mirja – Heli and Olli’s mother – also chose a seafaring husband, a sea captain. The young couple moved into the same family house with the bride’s mother.

While Heli and Olli’s father sailed the world’s seas, the women took care of the children and the home.

For the past two decades, Heli and her husband, Ilkka Rauvola from Turku, have lived in the house.

– Our grandmothers from Lokalahti were neighbors and friends.

We, however, started dating in Turku, when Heli walked toward me on the Cathedral Bridge in 1966, Ilkka recalls.

“Aren’t you Heli Kruuna?” he began the conversation.

– And soon after that we went to the movies together, Heli remembers with a smile.

Both built their careers working for the City of Uusikaupunki: Heli as the city’s tourism and information secretary, and Ilkka as cultural secretary.

Heli’s younger brother Olli is still drawn to Lokalahti, not only because of his sister but also because of the summer cottage his father built in the 1980s on Kaidanmaa Island.

Olli is a distinguished surgeon who has worked in Helsinki and Rovaniemi. A few years ago, he was named Surgeon of the Year.

In the service of the International Red Cross, he has treated the wounded in war and crisis areas around the world.

– I was inspired to study medicine in Sweden when Heli and I worked summer jobs as hospital aides in Stockholm in the 1970s.

The siblings like to reminisce about their childhood, when the cowshed still held a couple of cows, chickens roamed the yard, and their grandmother kept pigs for household needs.

Running water and a bathroom were installed in the sea captain’s house in the early 1960s, and the family went next door to watch television.

– Our father thought TV was unnecessary and a waste of study time, laughs Olli, who was once an athlete in the local Lokalahti sports club Leisku.

Their sea captain father, however, opened a much wider window to the world for his children: he took them along on cargo ships during the summers.

– We got to know European ports and many countries, Heli says.

Their mother was an eager reader and regularly brought home books for the children from the Lokalahti library.

To Heli, Lokalahti is still a wonderful place to live.

– There’s a shop, hairdresser, bank, post office, bus station, mobile library, café-restaurant, gym, and a disc golf course, Heli lists the services in her hometown.

– And a tennis court, where you can play for free.

Our grandchildren were just recently amazed that here you can play tennis without making a reservation, she adds.

Cultural life in Uusikaupunki is active. Ilkka is a regular visitor at the Uusikaupunki Theatre and the Crusell Week concerts.
– The French airplane seats bought for the Cruselli Cultural Center the year it was founded are still in excellent condition, the retired cultural secretary says with satisfaction.

Olli proudly showcases his favorite local attractions, such as the art house Pilvilinna and the lively Pakkahuone guest harbor.

Heli and Ilkka are also very content at home and don’t long for much else. Visits from children and grandchildren are always eagerly awaited.

The joy of life comes from small things, like the daily Scrabble game played over a cup of coffee.

Text and images Eija Eskola-Buri.