Unnamed Finnish Immigrants

These two Finns in The Mansion are among the more exotic inhabitants of Jefferson. They escaped "from Russia in 1917" and then "from Europe in 1919" (236). The 1917 Russian Revolution produced a lot of refugees and set off a civil war in neighboring Finland, but the text does not provide any details about what these two Finns were doing in Russia or why they had to "escape" from Europe when they did. "In the early twenties" they arrive in Jefferson, where one becomes a cobbler, taking over Nightingale's shop, and the other a tinsmith. The narrative refers to them as "communists" (236); because they see the Negroes in the South as the "proletariat" (237), the pair support Linda Kohl in her efforts to improve their social condition.