From a Back-Country Girl to a Gardener

Authors

• Marjukka Piirainen Itä-Suomen yliopisto

Keywords:

choice of a profession, remote areas, gender

Abstract

In this article, I examine the choice of profession of my mother, Aira, a 78-year-old gardener. In the 1950s, there were limited opportunities to get an education in Finland, especially for girls and particularly in remote areas such as Kainuu, where she was born. This article describes how she became a gardener. The research material consists of oral-history interviews conducted with her, and the research methods include oral-history research and ethnography. Analyzing Aira’s memories provides insights on childhood and youth in the borderland of Finland in the 1940s and 1950s. I argue that the instruction and influence provided by her teachers in elementary school, in an agricultural club, and at folk high school were determining factors in her choice of a profession, as her teachers were all enthusiastic about gardening and encouraged her. Nevertheless, she needed some fortunate coincidences to take the first steps on her career path. The article also illustrates that the education of gardeners was exceptional in the educational environment of the 1950s and 1960s, in that men and women were not segregated in training or at school.