The Törrö farm has a long and varied history, with information about it recorded since the 17th century.
1651 The chaplain buys the Törrö farm
The first chaplain of Pudasjärvi, Daniel Danielsson Anglenius (Nurcherus) (1628 – 1685) [see information on Geni.com], became a chaplain in Pudasjärvi in 1651. He accepted the tax on the abandoned Törrö or Törrölä farm, which remained in his ownership even after he was appointed vicar (in 1667). He then moved to live in the Hilturanta vicarage.
The previous vicar, Josephus Josephi Palmannus (1592 – 1666), drowned with his family when a boat capsized in Pudasjärvi, while returning from church to the Hilturanta vicarage in 1666 [see information on Geni.com].
19th-century churchwardens
Source: Parish history book, p. 97
Antti Törrö senior served as churchwarden from 1817 to 1852 and Antti Antinpoika junior from 1853 to 1880.
The churchwardens of Pudasjärvi were honest and active men, which was often proven during inspections by the rector and bishop. Antti Törrö senior found himself in a difficult situation during an inspection at the end of his term in 1847, because 134 rupees were missing from the church treasury. Törrö explained that the funds were kept in a secret stash, but someone had found out the location of the stash and stolen the funds from there. The parish confirmed Törrö’s honesty and the incident was found to have been caused by Törrö’s negligence due to his advanced age. Since Törrö was a wealthy man, he promised to compensate the parish for the missing amount of money. He held the position until 1852.
His son Antti Antinpoika Törrö was elected as the new churchwarden, to whom the house was transferred and from whom no guarantees were required in case of loss of church property. His term of office lasted 27 years.
After Antti Antinpoika the younger, ownership of the farm passed to Kaarlo Juho Aukustinpoika Törrö (1865 – 1940). Kaarlo, or Kalle as he was called, married Maria Haara-Hiltunen. She gave birth to 8 girls and one boy, who died at the age of 4. Maria died in 1911. Kalle married twice more. In 1917, Kalle sold the Törrö farm he owned to the municipality as a municipal home. Kalle’s family moved to the Perälä plot in Kurena.
Stable logs were obtained from the Kynkää sawmill
A story has been told that the Kynkää sawmill (1784 – 1886) had many buildings, including a stable for 16 horses, which was later moved to the Törrö farm owned by the municipality. The logs were used to make “new rooms for the infirm”. Source: Hugo Ponto’s memoirs.
History recorded by: Pirkko Savela 4.6.2025
Törrö as a municipal home in the 20th century
The text contains quotes from the story Pudasjärveläinen-lehti nr 31 p.12 / 31.7.2024 / Erkki Piri Törrö resident (only in Finnish)
https://www.vkkmedia.fi/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Pudasjarvelainen-31-2024-1.pdf
Törrö served as a nursing home until a new nursing home was built nearby, at which point the building served as living quarters for the staff. Törrö also served as a temporary hospital in the 1960s, when the old Pudasjärvi municipal hospital was destroyed by fire on May 7, 1967.
Becoming a resident of Törrö was, in many people’s opinion, the most terrible thing that could happen. In addition to the elderly, the municipal home housed mentally disabled, mentally ill, and not-so-old men and women who had no other home. It must have been so that the actual residents of the nursing home were a minority. There were 5-6 residents in the same room. Many grandmas and grandpas had a coffee pot under their bedside tables or beds. Before seven in the morning, when life at Törrö began to take off, grandmas and grandpas would boil coffee in the small kitchen of the ward, on a wood stove. A large pot was brought to the same kitchen twice a day from the main kitchen downstairs and the staff dining room, from which food was scooped into enamel cups for those who were able to wait in line. Of course, food was brought to the rooms for the bedridden patients. Everyone wanted to participate in the house work.
In addition to the director, the staff included two nurses, a mental nurse, an assistant nurse, two facility assistants, two cooks, a laundress and a farm manager with his assistants. Törrö was an almost self-sufficient farm with a large stone barn: about twenty dairy cows, pigs, sheep and chickens. Milk jugs were taken from the barn to the cooling room, where there were large blocks of ice brought in during the winter under the sawdust. Kouvan Kalle’s daily task was to load many jugs with a milk cart to take to the dairy. Kouvan Kalle was not the only one who participated in Törrö’s work. In principle, everyone who was able worked in the barn, in the hay field, in the berry forest, heated the enormous sauna, chopped logs in the litter, and Repo-Maija, who mumbled her own words from morning to night, rang the bell at the end of the barn to the nearest second to signal dinner.
On the roof of the sauna was a concrete tube, a cell, into which a man or woman who had fallen into psychosis by force of the police was often brought. Through a small hatch you could see what was inside the isolation cell. The care ideology of the municipal home was, after all, very modern and therapeutic. The residents were integrated into tasks that suited each one, which they were motivated to do so. The Törrö resident also managed the central heating by burning birch logs in a massive stove.
So why was it so terrible to become a Törrö resident?
There is not a long history of municipal homes, from the almshouses to the auction period for the poor and homeless, when the municipality auctioned people off to the lowest bidder. The auctioneer was most often discriminated against, a second-class citizen. These people later lived in almshouses, where humane treatment was questionable. The Törrö resident had a mark given to them by their environment. Hilda, the headmistress, walked around in her white coat from morning to night. Her watch was always stopped. Aunt Hilda spoke to each resident personally, knew their background and approached them accordingly. Törrö was home. It was home for Siipi-Hilda and Eepi, a couple. Eepi boasted that day: “Hilda and I are self-sufficient. The only thing we have for the house is housing, food and clothes.”
From decline to prosperity, new accommodation business after extensive renovation
The story of the Iijoki region is behind a paywall (in Finnish only): https://www.iijokiseutu.fi/rappiosta-kukoistukseen-talta-nayttaa-torron-karta/11585439