Emily Longi

Emily Longi was born December 1897 in Carbon, Wyoming, of Finnish ancestry. She married Johan Sigfried Lofstrom in Astoria Oregon on December 29, 1917 and had two children, Hubert and Sigurd. She died in the Oregon State Hospital in Salem, Oregon on December 22, 1950.

• Finnish American Society of the West in Portland.

• LDS geneology

• Migration Institute of Finland

Hanna Mine #1 Disaster of 1903, killed 96 Finnish immigrant coal miners

• 5 Longi-surnamed miners killed in 1903 Hanna Mine explosion

• another list with town names The 5 Longi surnames are from Yliveteli, which some maps place a few kilometers south of Veteli.

The Union Pacific mines used gouging, digging downwards to get the coal more cheaply. Safer practice involves sinking the main shaft all the way to the bottom of the works, then mining upwards, so that gas collects below the working area. Miners carried "safety lamps" which theoretically reduced risk, but sometimes opened them to light their pipes (!). A second disaster in 1908 killed 59 more. The mine was closed after that.

Emily did not lose her father or brothers to the explosions, but may have lost uncles. Finns were expendable immigrant trash, the northern "white wetbacks" of the early 20th century. They did not face today's racist border paranoia; as northern Europeans, they only had to pass a medical exam for communicable diseases, and were eligible for a stay at the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital until they recovered, or given a free trip back at the steamship company's expense.

My guess is that William and Lizzie did not pass through Ellis Island, but disembarked in Canada, and travelled by rail through Canada and Minnesota to Wyoming, their paper trail intentionally obscured by the Union Pacific company to enforce servitude. Wyoming was a territory before 1890, and documentation was minimal.