Midnight Sun to Southern Cross: Those who go and those who stay

by Ruth Bonetti

In the tradition of great family migration stories, Midnight Sun to Southern Cross continues the saga of the Back brothers' flight from Russian occupied Finland to Australia as the nineteenth century turned into the
twentieth.
From frozen Finland to the lush rainforests of northern New South Wales, to the dry and dusty sheep country of western Queensland, you follow the highs and lows of their new life under the Southern Cross.
It is an extraordinary tale of success, failure, hard work and dreaming. What drove the wheeler-dealer Wilhelm Anders Back, known as WA, to become in his time Australia's richest Finn? And what stirred his eccentric
writerly elder brother Karl Johan, KJ, pacifist and political dissenter? What of those who stayed behind in Finland, and bravely struggled to oust the Russians from their homeland? This book, and its predecessor, Burn My
Letters, are timely in the centenary year of Finnish Independence. WA's granddaughter Ruth contrasts his and KJ's formative years in Finland with her own upbringing in outback Queensland. Her voyage of discovery and self-discovery uncovers research in Finland and Australia, and interweaves her own transformation from shy bush girl to speaker and musician.

262 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2017

Reviews

[Jeanette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part memoir, part family history and part Finnish-Australian history of the late 19th and early 20th century, Midnight Sun to Southern Cross is a stirring story of courage, hope, opportunity, strength in adversity and enduring family connections across years and latitudes.

Ruth Bonetti weaves her own story of growing up as a shy, imaginative bush kid in outback Queensland, school in Brisbane, success as a musician, marriage, motherhood and travels to Europe with the story of her grandfather Wilhelm Anders (WA) Back and great-uncle Karl Johan (KJ ) Back settling in Australia and also of the family who stayed in Finland. In Burn My Letters, Ruth focuses on KJ's resistance to Russian oppression of Finland and his flight to Australia. In this second book, Midnight Sun to Southern Cross, Ruth turns to KJ's younger, more pragmatic, forceful and successful brother, WA Back. She also explores the lives of Anna Sanna, who eventually joined her brothers in Australia, and sister Sophia and the youngest brother Edvard and his family, who stayed in Finland to look after their elderly parents.

This is not a dry family history, but a tale of adventure and momentous historical happenings. Ruth brings the past to life with her evocative descriptions, her dialogues and dramatic retellings, her imagined conversations with her ancestors. It is also a personal journey of discovery as Ruth delves deep into lives, emotions and motivations, including her own. She revisits childhood settings, travels on more than one occasion to Finland to meet relatives, discovers newspaper articles, histories, remembered stories and treasure troves of letters and photographs. She sifts through family legends with sources and facts. In many ways, this is also a history of northern New South Wales around the Byron Bay area, of western Queensland and St. Lucia in Brisbane.

Faith is also part of the weave - sometimes stark, pat, harsh and rigid - but at other times, the strength that sustains, the star that guides, the gentle hope in God's love and grace. It is also a, perhaps timely, reminder of the significant contribution of immigrants (often fleeing strife in their homelands) to our nation. If I'm left with any questions it's that the few incidental mentions of the local aborigines, the first owners and custodians of the land, left me wanting to know more. Ruth also moves between time periods, often approaching incidents thematically rather than chronologically, yet this is skillfully done and she also provides timelines, a genealogy and plenty of photos, so that I rarely got lost. A map of Finland and Northern NSW to western Queensland would also have been helpful.

Overall, Midnight Sun to Southern Cross is a worthy sequel to Burn My Letters. Enjoyable, engaging and interesting. It would surely be of interest to lovers of memoirs, biographies - or those interested in the history of Queensland and northern New South Wales as well as Finland in the 19th and 20th centuries.

I had the delightful privilege to provide feedback on Midnight Sun to Southern Cross before publication and was surprised and thrilled to receive a free autographed copy at the launch - along with a lovely violet which is now thriving in my garden.

[Ruth Bonetti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Glowing praise emailed from a reader who doesn't post online:
“I just finished reading your 'Midnight Sun to Southern Cross' and enjoyed it!

I found this second book easier to read than the first, 'Burn My Letters'. I am not a good reader, and perhaps I was more accustomed to the genre this time. I especially enjoyed the chapters around 'Finding Finland'. I felt there was good balance in the way the characters were presented. As I read on, I thought often about the huge personal and research journey you must have been on to compile the story. This has dominated years of your life. Wow. Such tenacity. Congratulations.”
–J.T.

[Adele Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Confession: this was my holiday read a couple of years ago, but my reading got interrupted for a significant time due to restrictions in a busy work period. I actually finished it at the beginning of this year, and am only now getting to reviewing. Unfortunately this means my review comes rather retrospectively, but I know when I began reading I had an immediate connection to "young Ruth's" childhood memories as depicted in this story - both in a sensory context from her visually satisfying descriptions, to emotionally as she told of her childhood and young adult years. I too had experienced that sense of transition between the familiarity of wide, flat farming landscapes and take-it-as-you-go living with family budgets making do around the flux of a farm-reliant income, to living in the city with its built-up busyness and ever constant change. Likewise, as a young person I'd known the elation of succeeding in music performance, though on a much smaller platform than what Ruth achieved. As such, I felt her heartbreak when her wonderful achievement was dismissed, more so that she had managed this heady accolade despite grappling with painful shyness. Being privileged to meet Ruth as an adult, I would never have guessed any of these challenges based on the capable and engaging woman she is today. Her willingness to invite the reader into her vulnerabilities was effectively used to bridge into the imperfect and saddening decline and family dismissal of her uncle KJ's ambitions (a historical parallel) against the backdrop of his determined, larger-than-life brother, WA. Understanding his significant influence in St. Lucia and beyond, Ruth does a wonderful job painting those scenes for her readers, including those of us familiar with many of those landmarks. The story had a lengthier conclusion, which was unfortunately disrupted as this was the point at which I had to abandon my reading. This made it a little difficult to pick up the multiple threads Ruth had been weaving to that point, but I was able to reconnect reasonably well as she resolved her story through reflections on her journey tethering the historical identities and achievements of her forebears', both the known and unknown, to her current life.

[Annette Whybird]

Hi Ruth and Antoni,

It was such a pleasure meeting you both on board ship at Easter.

Thank you, Ruth, for giving me your card so I could procure your two books, Burn My Letters and Midnight Sun to Southern Cross. I read them with interest and fascination. Both Graham and I are familiar with many of the places in Australia mentioned in your books, and Graham remembers the house at 209 Hawken Drive St Lucia from when he was at Kings College in 1964-5, studying for the Ministry.

I particularly enjoyed the story of you, Antoni, losing your place in the music when playing your solo. You both must have laughed over that incident many times.

I hope that all is well with you both.

Kindest Regards,

Annette (and Graham)

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't wait to read the second part of the family saga. Even if I wasn't connected to the Northern Land, which I am indirectly, I'd still be interested in the tale of these intrepid folk coming to our shores for new lives. Not only that, the author brought back poignant memories of my own childhood which made for pleasant whiffs of nostalgia.

[Chrsitopher Valttila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ruth's book deserves to be translated into Swedish and Finnish so that the saga of her family's emigration to Australia from Finland can reach the wider Finnish readership . An interesting heart felt history by a grand daughter of a pioneering Finnish - Swedish speaking brothers - emigrants to Australia as well as with humorous anecdotes about aspects of her Australian life especially the departure from the Queensland outback to Brisbane for her education was so amusing it had me in stitches . The life and times also resonates with my experience of Finnish emigrants to Australia as well as my life and times in Finland and Australia over the years in the 20th and 21st century .

[Bob Dix · Rating 5 out of 5]

I need to say, Ruth tells it the way I remembered it all. All the way from Finland to Brisbane, Byron Bay, The North Coast of NSW around Lismore, Ocean Shores and much more. Particularly Hawken Drive , St Lucia, and their house. Just magic, similar to the one at Cavendish Road, Coorparoo.
Well written !!!!

[Monkeith Kadhum · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found Midnight Sun a very engaging, frank and informative book with multilayers of personal and family stories that span back to the late 19th century. The events and stories of the book cover many parts of the world but mainly the Swedish part of Finland, Queensland and the northern coast of NSW. The writer, Ruth Bonetti, journeys into the history of her Finnish background and her grandfather’s emigration to Australia.
The book focuses on the life and the vision of Wilhelm Anders Back (or WA Back), who arrived Australia in January 1903, while still 16 years old. His intuitive enterprising skills and boundless energy enabled various successful businesses and farming ventures to become (reputedly) “Australia’s Richest Finn”. WA married a fine Australian wife 6 years after his arrival in this Promised Land, Australia.
WA’s story runs in tandem with that of his elder brother Karl Johan Back (KJ), a contrasting personality to his younger brother. He was a writer, dreamer and thinker aspiring for a future humanity of equality and justice to all. Beside some minor successful farming projects, KJ stayed an unmarried recluse with big ideas. It is clear the writer admires her industrious grandfather WA, but feels more affinity to KJ, the aspiring dreamer.
The book would be of a special interest to Australian Finn and to any person or group interested in the heritage of Queensland. It also has a timely relevance in highlighting the suffering and the struggle of the Finnish people against the Russian occupation of their country during late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is a great read.
Monkeith Kadhum -28 July 2022

[Leanne Farmiloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating story of a talented family who had the courage to venture into the unknown. I love the mix of photos, poetry, wisdom and the recounting of the life this family made in Australia. I highly recommend this book!