VIRGINIA —- David Pearsall, son of the late J. Edward and Marjorie Pearsall of Virginia, has written another book, Immigrants: The Story of America. He also wrote Son of Wake Island and World War II: Honor and Remembrance.

Pearsall will be signing books and doing readings and presentations at the following locations:

Wednesday, August 19, Lake Vermilion Cultural Center, Tower, 7 p.m.

Friday, August 21, Canelake’s Candies, Virginia, 3 to 5 p.m.

What follows are excerpts from Immigrants: The Story of America, including stories submitted by area residents.

From Immigrants: The Story of America:

In the northern reaches of Minnesota, far from the great ports of entry, another chapter of the American immigration story was being written.

I grew up in the northern reaches of Minnesota, far from the great ports of entry, and another chapter of the American immigration story was being written.

The Iron Range did not receive immigrants first.

It needed them.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the discovery of vast iron ore deposits in northeastern Minnesota transformed the region into one of the most important mining centers in the United States. The Mesabi, Vermilion, and Cuyuna ranges supplied the raw material that would fuel American industry—steel for railroads, bridges, ships, and cities.

But the land was rugged, remote, and unforgiving.

To build the mines, harvest the surrounding forests, and establish towns in this northern wilderness, labor was essential. That labor came from across the world.

Immigrants arrived not by ship to a single gateway, but by rail—moving inland from ports like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, or crossing from Canada. They came from Finland, Sweden, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and many other parts of Europe. Each group brought language, customs, and traditions that would shape the region.

The Iron Range became a mosaic.

Finnish immigrants were among the earliest and most numerous, drawn by both economic opportunity and the familiarity of a cold northern climate. They worked in the mines, established cooperative communities, and built institutions that reflected their cultural heritage.

Southern and Eastern Europeans followed.

Italian immigrants, many from rural regions, came seeking wages unavailable at home. Slavic workers—Slovenians, Croatians, Serbians—joined them underground and in the growing mining towns. Each group formed tight-knit communities, often centered around churches, mutual aid societies, and family networks.

Life was not easy.

Mining was dangerous work. Conditions underground were harsh. Accidents were frequent. Wages were modest, and economic cycles could bring sudden unemployment. In lumber camps, winters were long and isolating, and labor was physically demanding.

Yet communities took root.

Towns such as Hibbing, Virginia, and Eveleth grew from rough settlements into organized communities. Schools were built. Churches rose with distinctive architectural styles reflecting ethnic traditions. Newspapers appeared in multiple languages.

Cultural identity endured, even as assimilation began.

Children of immigrants attended American schools, learned English, and moved between two worlds—home and community shaped by heritage, and a broader society shaped by American life. Over time, identities blended, but traces of origin remained visible in names, food, festivals, and traditions.

The Iron Range was not a single community.

It was many communities, layered together.

Labor movements also took shape in this environment. Workers organized for safer conditions, fair wages, and recognition. Strikes and labor disputes reflected broader national struggles, but they were rooted in the daily realities of immigrant workers in the mines and forests.

The region contributed more than raw materials.

It contributed people.

Generations of Iron Range families would go on to serve in the military, enter professions, build businesses, and participate in civic life across the country. What began as labor migration became permanent settlement. What began as separate ethnic enclaves became interconnected communities.

The Iron Range tells a familiar American story—set in a distinct place.

Immigrants came seeking work. They found hardship. They built lives. They raised families. They carried forward traditions while becoming part of something larger.

In time, the region itself became a reflection of the nation.

Not a melting pot that erased difference, but a mosaic that held it—each piece contributing to the whole.

For those who grew up there, the story is not abstract.

It is personal.

I grew up in Virginia, in the heart of the Iron Range. We lived the immigrant story. It was not something we studied; it was something we experienced. Our friends, our neighbors, our families all carried pieces of that history. Different languages, different traditions, different origins—but shared lives in the same communities.

What had begun as separate journeys from distant places had, over time, become something shared.

The Iron Range was not just a place where immigrants came to work.

It was a place where they became Americans—together.

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The Mines: Far From Home (Finnish and Swedish Perspective)

We came because there was work. That is what we were told. In Finland and in Sweden, the land could not support all of us, and here they said there were wages to be earned in the mines.

The cold did not frighten us. It felt familiar. But the work was not like anything we had known. Underground or open pit, the air was heavy, and the danger was always there—even when you could not see it.

At night, we gathered with others who spoke our language. We shared food, stories, and news from home. Some said they would return one day. Most did not.

We stayed, and we built our lives here.

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From the Old Country to the Range (Italian Perspective)

We left because there was no work for us at home. In Italy, the land was not enough, and the future seemed already decided. In America, we were told, a man could earn his own way.

When we arrived in Minnesota, the cold was something we had never known. It settled into everything, your hands, even your thoughts. But the work was steady, and that mattered.

In the mines, we worked beside men from many places. We did not all speak the same language, but underground, we understood one another. The work made us the same.

On Sundays, we gathered with our own—food, music, and the language of home. But each year, America became more familiar.

We did not forget where we came from. But we learned how to belong here.

—-

By Pamela Canelake Matson

Canelake’s Candies is Minnesota’s oldest continuously running candy store. Its success began with the immigration of five brothers from Greece to the Iron Range.

Canelake’s Greek Beginnings:

The Kanellakis brothers’ story begins in the 1890s when five brothers lived with their parents and four sisters in a 2-room house in the small village of Sykea, Greece. At that time, the family was struggling with poor crops and poverty, forcing the brothers to leave for a better life in America. The oldest brother, Christ, immigrated to Philadelphia in 1891. The second oldest, Gust, arrived at New York City in 1892. The third brother, Thomas, has an unknown date of arrival is unknown. Another brother, John, immigrated to the U.S but was returned to Greece when he was diagnosed with Tuberculosis. Nick, the youngest brother, was the last to arrive in Virginia, MN in 1906. The brothers first worked as fruit & flower peddlers in New York City and as foundry workers in Chicago. During their move to America, the Kannellakis name was changed to the Canelake spelling.

Candy making was not a trade brought from Greece but learned in the United States by Greek immigrants who had arrived earlier. As more Greeks learned candy making, they became known for their skills in the confectionery trade. Christ was the first to learn candy making from relatives living in Rhode Island after he moved to Providence to help them in their business.

Christ next moved to Waukegan, Illinois, where he shared ownership in a candy business. A Waukegan salesperson encouraged Christ to move to the Iron Range, specifically Virginia, Minnesota, where it was reported to be booming. Christ soon moved to Virginia, where he witnessed the lumber mill and mining boom. He asked his brothers Gust and Thomas to join him on the Iron Range, and together they opened the Virginia Candy Kitchen in 1905.

Next, Christ and Nick opened the Hibbing Candy Kitchen, leaving Gust and Thomas to run The Virginia Candy Kitchen. The Hibbing store was later moved when the mines forced the entire town to move to a new South Hibbing location. Canelake’s Café & Candy replaced the Hibbing Candy Kitchen at the new location. Christ & Nick continued to manage this business until Christ died in 1937. His Brother Nick continued management until 1946 when he retired, and Canelake’s Café & Candy was closed. Christ’s son Alex Canelake stayed on to manage The Corner bar in Hibbing, a well-known establishment that is still operating under other owners today.

In its earliest days, the Virginia Candy Kitchen moved several times, with its final move to 414 Chestnut Street in 1917. Gust Canelake managed the candy store after his brother Thomas opened The Olympia candy shop in the Northern State Bank building in the 300 block of downtown. Though just a block apart, there was enough business for each store to succeed. Thomas retired and closed The Olympia in 1951.

Gust remained at the Virginia Candy Kitchen, giving ownership to his sons John and Leo Canelake after they returned from service in World War II. At this time, the store was renamed “Canelake’s Candies.” Gust retired in 1949 but still came in daily to hand-dip chocolate crème centers with his wife Anna. The small marble table that they used for dipping is on display at Canelake’s in their recently installed candy museum. The museum is a tribute to candy memories and includes historical photos, candy tools and equipment, including the cream beater that ran for over 100 years in the candy kitchen.

Gust’s sons and second-generation owners, Leo and John, managed Canelake’s Candies until their retirement, selling the business in 1982 to Jim Cina, a “natural” candy maker from Aurora, MN. At that time, the third generation Canelake children were not living on the Iron Range and had pursued other education & careers. In their era, John and Leo were expected to carry on the business, and they did not want to put that pressure on their children.

John and Leo’s children enjoyed the candy store in their youth, stopping in for “treats” and making candy canes during the holidays. They benefited from excellent schools thanks to the value that immigrants placed on education. They also gained friendships with many ethnic families, cousins, and other Greek families like the Buzunis, Demorlis and Marmas families that they are still friends with today.

Jim Cina followed Leo and John’s candy lessons loyally and invested in a chocolate enrober and cooling tunnel, air conditioning, and a new roof. He also followed in the depression era habits of the previous owners. A sign still hangs that asks employees to keep the lights off in the basement if they would like a raise!

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Third Generation Buys Back Canelake’s

Jim retired and put the store up for sale in 2018. John’s children brought Canelake’s back into the family after 36 years of Jim’s ownership. Luckily, they came with candy-making experience. Before they purchased Canelake’s Candies, sisters Patricia Canelake and Pamela Canelake Matson, along with Dennis Matson, opened Great! Lakes Candy Kitchen in Knife River Mn in 2007. After 25 years of retirement, their father, John, taught them to follow the recipes exactly, never skimping on the chocolate, butter, and cream. John also emphasized the techniques required that are of equal importance to a successful batch of candy.

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The Canelake Legacy Continues

In 2018, the purchase of Canelake’s Candies came with lots of hard work, but with a ton of support. Iron Range residents welcomed the newest Canelake owners greatly! Today, visitors continue to bring many sweet memories, especially since Canelake’s was a popular stop for not only candy sweets, but also for soda fountain treats. In earlier years, Virginia High School students entered through the back door, where John and Leo would often gift them a sample of freshly poured fudge or other candies just made in copper kettles. Students would often skip school lunch for a Coke, potato chips, and Hot Air candy at Canelake’s soda fountain. Iron Range residents remember first dates at Canelake’s that led to romance and marriage, and former employees often find photos displayed of themselves in earlier years. Historical photos on the walls add much interest and memories of the candy-making history. Today, fans bring their children and grandchildren to Canelake’s to continue their favorite candy and soda fountain traditions. Hot Air, Turtles, and Green Rivers are still favorites at Canelake’s Candies.

John Canelake advised his family to “create a memory” at the candy store. He knew that even young children would remember a visit to Canelake’s Candies years later if you made their visit memorable. Generally, this meant greeting visitors, showing them the candy kitchen or gifting a candy sample.

Additional advice from John was to “get enough help.” After many years of hard work, John did not want his children to work as hard as he and his family had before them.

The third generation had never imagined coming back to the family business but did so after they realized the importance of preserving the candy-making recipes and traditions. They became grateful for the legacy they inherited and the candy-making skills given to them. After their purchase, they understood the importance of making a memory and getting enough help to run the business. Today, they continue to follow the recipes exactly and welcome customers. They rely on and appreciate the expertise and loyalty of employees at both store locations.

Since buying back Canelake’s into the family in 2018, the owners have remodeled and expanded Canelake’s, adding a Candy Museum and Tourist Information area. They are grateful for the support that allows them to continue as Minnesota’s oldest running candy store. They continue to follow the original Canelake recipes, making candy the old-fashioned way, hand-stirred in copper kettles, with lots of cream and butter! Fourth-generation candymakers and cousins, Andrew Matson and Sam Canelake, are continuing the legacy at both stores. The family is proud to be in their 20th year at Great! Lakes Candy Kitchen in Knife River and proud of their 121st year at Canelake’s Candies in Virginia.

The Canelake family will be forever grateful to their family who immigrated from Greece and succeeded in the candy making that would bring opportunities for generations of Canelake’s on the Iron Range. They plan to preserve the history, share the traditions, and continue Canelake’s Candies forever!

—

Finnish Immigrant Mining Families on Minnesota’s Iron Ranges

By Elaine Sooger McGillivray

My great-grandfather, grandfather, and father were all Finnish immigrants—or sons of immigrants—whose lives were tied to the iron mines of northern Minnesota.

Their story is not only about immigration.It is about labor, sacrifice, survival, and the generations shaped by the mining industry of the Vermilion and Mesabi Iron Ranges.

It is also the story of how, more than a century later, I came to help memorialize the 143 men who died in or near the Soudan Underground Mine.

—-

Matti Soderena—A Journey That Ended Underground

My great-grandfather, Matti Soderena—whose surname later evolved into Sookran and eventually Sooger—arrived at Ellis Island on June 21, 1893. Like many Finnish immigrants, he came seeking work in Minnesota’s growing mining industry. His goal was simple and deeply personal: earn enough money to bring his family from Finland to America.

He found work in the Soudan Underground Mine.

Family members believe he lived in a boarding house in Soudan while working there as a trammer, pushing ore cars underground in dangerous conditions. Ten months after arriving in America, tragedy struck.

On April 25, 1894, Matti fell 200 feet down a mine shaft and was killed instantly. A newspaper account in the Vermilion Iron Journal reported that he had been pushing an empty ore car toward the cage elevator when, “for some reason or other,” the cage was not there.

The ore car—and Matti—plunged into the shaft.

He was forty-four years old.

He left behind a wife and children in Finland.

More than a century later, our family still asks the same question:

Why wasn’t the cage there?

——

A Promise to Remember

One hundred years later, in 1994, my father, Urho Oscar Sooger—a miner himself and grandson of Matti—visited the Iron Range Research Center to locate the newspaper article describing his grandfather’s death.

He was upset that the men who had died in the Soudan Mine were rarely mentioned during tours of the historic site.

After finding the article on microfilm, he handed it to me and said:

“Please do something about this when you retire.”

I placed the article in a safe place.

Years later, after my husband and I retired to the Vermilion Range near Tower, I finally began that work.

In 2019, several cousins visited us and toured the Soudan Underground Mine. During the tour, the guide briefly mentioned that men had died there. My cousins immediately asked why there was no permanent memorial or information recognizing those workers.

That moment became the catalyst.

I organized a research committee through the Tower-Soudan Historical Society with the goal of documenting every known death connected to the mine and surrounding property between 1884 and 1957.

The project eventually identified 143 men.

Today, binders containing death certificates, newspaper accounts, photographs, and research materials are available at the Tower Train Depot Museum and soon at the Lake Vermilion-Soudan Underground Mine State Park. Detailed information is also preserved through the Historical Society.

What began as a family story became a community memorial.

—-

A Legacy of Miners

Matti left more than tragedy behind.

He left a legacy of miners.

His son—my grandfather, Matti Sooger—came from Finland to the Iron Range in 1906 aboard the SS Ottawa, traveling from Liverpool to Quebec before continuing into the United States through Canada and Michigan.

Although only ten years old when his father died, he eventually followed the same path into mining work on the Iron Range, primarily in the open-pit mines near Virginia and Eveleth.

At one point, he was reportedly blacklisted from mining work because he was seen reading a Finnish-language newspaper—management feared he might be connected to labor organizing efforts. He later worked as a lumberjack in the Orr area.

Meanwhile, his wife and children remained in Finland during years marked by poverty, World War I, and the Finnish Civil War of 1918.

Finally, in 1921, after years of separation, he earned enough money to bring his family to Minnesota.

My father was nine years old when he arrived in America.

—-

The Next Generation

The next generation miner was my father, Urho Oscar Sooger.

He graduated from Virginia High School in 1931 during the depths of the Great Depression. After briefly attending agricultural college, serving in the Civilian Conservation Corps, and serving in Germany during World War II, he returned to the Iron Range and began working for the Oliver Iron Mining Company in 1946.

He worked as a mechanic on the massive yellow mining trucks used in the pits around Virginia and the Rouchleau Mine.

He remained in mining until retiring from the Minntac operation in 1975.

Mining had shaped three generations of our family.

My generation benefited directly from the sacrifices of these immigrant miners.

The mining industry supported the schools, communities, and public institutions of the Iron Range. My husband and I received excellent educations in Virginia, Minnesota—made possible in part through taxes generated by the mines.

We went on to meaningful careers and eventually retired near the very region where my great-grandfather lost his life more than a century earlier.

In many ways, the story came full circle.

One final and unexpected chapter emerged from our researWhile searching the Tower-Soudan Historical Society website, a woman named Sheila Coughlin discovered documentation related to her own great-great-grandfather.

That man was Matti Soderena—my great-grandfather.

Through our shared research, we discovered we were distant cousins.

Family oral history had long suggested Matti had been buried in a pauper’s field without a marked grave. But through cemetery records and local research, Sheila helped locate his burial site at Lakeview Cemetery.

For the first time in more than a century, we knew exactly where he rested.

Our family is now preparing a proper marker for his grave.

It is a small act of remembrance.

But an important one.

The history of immigration is often told through arrival.

But on Minnesota’s Iron Ranges, it was also written underground—in darkness, danger, labor, and sacrifice.

The miners who came from Finland and so many other countries helped build not only an industry, but entire communities and generations of opportunity.

Their work shaped the lives that followed.

And they deserve to be remembered.

—-

From Finland to the Iron Range

By Larry Lampsa—with Linda Tyssen (grandchildren)

Imanuel Niemiste immigrated to Telluride, Colorado, from Alavus, Finland, in May of 1889, shortly after his twenty-first birthday. Like many Finnish immigrants of that era, he came seeking opportunity and a better future than the harsh rural life available in Finland. For much of the next decade, he worked in the dangerous gold mines of Colorado, laboring high in the mountains under difficult conditions.

In 1897, Imanuel proudly became an American citizen. The following year, he returned temporarily to Finland, perhaps hoping to find a wife and reconnect with family. During that visit, he met Maria Luoma, a young woman from a nearby village who had come to work on the Niemiste family farm. In November 1898, the couple sailed to America on a two-week Atlantic voyage and were married shortly afterward in Denver, Colorado.

The newlyweds returned to Telluride, where Imanuel worked alongside his brother John in the mines. Life for mining families was difficult. The men often stayed high in the mountains near the mines for weeks at a time, seeing their families only occasionally. Seeking a more stable life, both brothers moved their families in 1900 to northeastern Minnesota’s Iron Range, where Finnish immigrants were building new communities around the booming iron mining industry.

While John worked in the mines, Imanuel and Maria operated boarding houses in Virginia and later Eveleth, Minnesota, serving the growing immigrant workforce. During those years, their sons Jelmer, Emil, and Arthur were born. In 1903, the Niemistes purchased forty acres of land west of Eveleth in an area called Wolf, later expanding the farm to eighty acres. For many Finnish immigrants, owning farmland represented independence, stability, and the fulfillment of dreams that had been impossible in Europe.

The family first lived in a simple log home before building a larger farmhouse with a stone basement. Electricity arrived around 1918, followed by telephone service in 1922. Like many immigrant families, the Niemistes balanced assimilation with preserving their heritage. The children were encouraged to speak English, but when neighbors listened in on shared party-line telephone conversations, the family switched to Finnish for privacy.

Tragedy struck in 1906 when Maria rescued a boy from drowning in a flooded creek but later Maria contracted pneumonia and died. She was only twenty-eight years old. Left widowed with three young boys, Imanuel again turned to Finland and family connections for support. In 1907, Kreeta Ottilia Kallio, whose family had long known the Niemistes, immigrated to America and married Imanuel later that year. Together they raised a large family of eight additional children.

The Niemiste family’s story reflected both hardship and perseverance. Farming, mining, and boarding-housework demanded constant labor, yet the family endured and prospered. Their children grew up as part of Minnesota’s strong Finnish-American community, contributing to the region’s schools, churches, farms, mines, and military service.

Like many immigrant families, the Niemistes also paid a price in sacrifice. Son Arthur died young from tuberculosis in 1934. Another son, Eino, was killed during World War II while serving in Italy and is buried today in the American military cemetery in Florence, Italy.

Imanuel Niemiste died on Christmas Eve in 1943, ending a remarkable journey that had begun more than fifty years earlier in Finland. From the gold mines of Colorado to the farms and iron ranges of Minnesota, his life reflected the determination of countless immigrants who helped build communities across America while preserving the traditions and resilience they carried from their homeland.