John and Kerttu Wennström with daughter. Photo courtesy of the Wennstrom Family.
The Life & Dream of John Anton Wennström by Nancy Nygård
An interview with his daughter, Joan Wennstrom Bennett and input from his son, John Dennis Wennstrom. John was born on March 24, 1916, in Salis, Hammarland, Åland. He was born out of wedlock to Erika Ingeborg Holmström. Soon after John’s birth, his mother emigrated to America leaving John to be raised by various members of her family. It was a difficult childhood moving from one family to another. He went to school for about eight years. He was a very bright student. When his family wanted him to quit school and begin work, it is rumored that the schoolmaster saw John’s potential, and offered to pay for his continuing education. The family refused the offer, so John ended up working as a cabin boy for the Erikson Shipping Companies of Mariehamn, Åland, one of the last sail-powered fleets in Europe. Later, he worked on a fox farm; he didn’t like either job. Working on the water caused sea sickness and labor on the fox farm was dirty and difficult–he felt sorry for the animals who were ultimately killed for their fur. In the meantime, John’s mother had married in America. Her husband’s surname was “Wennström”. He had no children of his own and was
willing to sponsor his stepson to come to America if John would take his family name. So, in 1936, John immigrated to New York using the surname of Wennström. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, on January 15, 1937, his mother died of pneumonia complicated by alcoholism. John had not yet learned to speak English. In later years, John referred to that period as the darkest time in his life, even harder than the time he later spent in a foxhole during WWII. However, John was disciplined and resilient. He learned to speak English, he found a job in a factory, and joined several Scandinavian-American organizations in Brooklyn, New York. Then, at a dance sponsored by one of these groups, he met Kerttu Elina Johnson. She was a Finnish-speaking Finn born in ‘Finntown’ Brooklyn. John didn’t speak Finnish and Kerttu didn’t speak Swedish, so they spoke to each other in English. They married in 1941, only a few months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the start of WWII. They started a family; two children, Joan Irene born on September 15, 1942, and John Dennis born on March 21, 1947. Because John’s mother died before he married, his children never met their farmor. However, they did enjoy a long-lasting relationship with her younger sister,
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