Tuesday, February 6, 2018

On This Date in Minnesota History: February 6

February 6, 1912 – Rather than face a winter of starvation, Mrs. Konsta Mattala, mother of nine children, donned her husband’s big boots and walked nine miles through the snow drifts and half broken roads to the station of Tower and came from there to Duluth to apply to the county poor authorities for relief.

She claims she is the sister of Axel Pakkala, the well-known and wealthy Virginia saloon owner, who was murdered on Christmas morning last. His relatives have shunned her, she said, although her family has been in hard straits for some time.

Not only has she been forsaken by her brother’s relatives, but she also is confronted with another problem. Her husband is in the St. Louis County Jail serving 60 days for stealing. The poor authorities are now trying to secure his release on the ground that it was his first offense and that he has always been a sober and industrious farmer.


Duluth, St. Louis County Jail1

Nine miles from Tower in a little farmhouse well snowed in, nine children today are waiting for their mother’s return. The oldest child is 14 years old. Since the arrest of their father at Tower last week the big family has been in hard straits.


Mrs. Mattala first came to the county jail to visit her husband, who is serving three months for getting drunk and stealing a $15 harness when he came to Tower last week. She had not learned the particulars of his arrest until she talked with him. She spent the night at the jail by the side of her husband.

This morning, she visited the office of Charles Shogran, secretary of the county poor commission, and told her story of privation and suffering. Being of Finnish descent, she was unable to speak English well and an interpreter was secured. She also begged the county poor agent and the sheriff to have her husband sent back.

In 16 years of married life, this was her husband’s first offense, she said. He is able and willing to work and is usually sober and industrious, she explained. She expressed surprise that he had been sent to jail and according to her version of the trouble, the arrest came about as a result of a misunderstanding over a trade.

Konsta Mattala, the man who is in jail, was sent down from Tower last week to serve three months for stealing a harness. He had been arraigned and convicted by Magistrate A. D. Fuller of the Tower municipal court. The county poor authorities will take the matter up with Judge Fuller and will ask him to have Mattala’s sentence suspended, with the view of giving him a chance to support his family.

In the meantime, the Mattala family will be provided for. This afternoon Shogran bought the woman a ticket to Tower and gave her a letter for A. W. Ackerson, the county poor agent at the place with instructions to see that the family was provided for until arrangements could be made for the release of her husband from the county jail.

The Duluth Herald; “Nine Children Left Alone in Snow Covered Cabin. Father Serving Jail Sentence—Mother Leaves to Seek Food. Tramps Nine Miles Through Drifts to Appeal to County.”; Feb. 6, 1912; p. 2.

1http://zenithcity.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/StLCtyJail1889_DPL.jpg

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