10. The Motion Picture Business

One industry was not hurt by the Great Depression. During the 1930’s motion pictures were a growth industry. After the introduction of sound in 1927, movies began to gain in popularity at the expense of Vaudeville stage shows. The Great Depression enhanced the success of the movie business since movies were cheaper than the live actors of Vaudeville. Motion pictures were one of the few industries that grew and prospered during the great depression of the 1930’s There was a great increase in the number of movie theaters. Movies became the key form of popular entertainment in the United States and continued to dominate the entertainment field until the rise of television in the 1950’s.

William Kyro noticed that there was no theater in the community of Farmington, Michigan (near Detroit). Builder and Realtor Edward Rose owned a building housing an A&P grocery store on Grand River avenue near Farmington Road. William, suggested to Mr. Rose that the store could be converted into a profitable motion picture theater. He worked out a detailed plan and contacted film distributors. Mr. Rose followed the plan, but did not invite William to be a partner. The theater was a success from the start and still exists today (2006) as a modest operating theater at the center of the City of Farmington.

In 1935 The Kyro family lived at 4631 Second Blvd. The Finnish Lutheran Church was the center of Finnish social life in Detroit. The Kyro family was affiliated with the Finnish Lutheran Church and often attended social events at the church building.

During the 1930’s the Finnish people in Detroit organized a summer camp at Loon Lake (also called Sun Lake). This camp was organized as a cooperative planned community. Members were allowed to construct small cottages for use during vacations and weekends during the summer. These cottages were all nearly identical since they were required to follow a common plan. The Kyro family were members and owned one of these cottages. Two wooden docks were constructed to allow swimming, diving and boating. One dock had a high tower for diving into the water.

The Loon Lake summer camp also had a sauna. Although William Kyro never owned a sauna, all members of the Kyro family enjoyed this Finnish tradition at Loon Lake. John Dixon, at the age of three, was introduced to the sauna at Loon Lake.

A little later, another Finnish summer camp was organized at Cass Lake. It was owned by a Finnish group called “The Ladies of Kaleva” and named Kaleva Park. The land at Cass Lake was obtained for a low price since it was low and wet. It was necessary to fill in the swampy land with dirt and sand taken from a large hill on the property. Erick Kyro helped with the work of moving the sand. A beach was constructed along the lake shore to allow swimming and boating. A wooden swimming float was constructed. The float contained 55 gallon metal drums to provide buoyancy. The float was anchored about 150 feet out in the lake where the water was about 15 feet deep. A dance hall was constructed to provide space for Finnish celebrations and gatherings. A few cottages were constructed that could be rented by the week for summer vacations.

These summer camps were located northwest of Detroit at a distance of 15 or 20 miles. During the 1930s and the following decades the Kyro family often spent Sunday afternoons swimming and picnicking at one or the other of these camps.

Kaleva Hall was an important meeting place for the Finns of Detroit. It was owned by “The Ladies of Kaleva.” The building was located at the corner of Indiandale and Montville Place near the center of Detroit. The Kyro family and the Dixon family often attended social events there. The Finns always celebrated Kalevala day (February 28). This is the anniversary of the first publication of an epic Finnish folk poem in 1824. It is considered the birth of the Finnish language in written form. Detroit Finns also celebrated Finnish Independence Day (December 6, 1917).

During the late 1930’s, The Kyro family lived in a house at 1939 Pasadena near Woodrow Wilson Avenue in Detroit. The Dixon family lived in their gift shop about five miles away. It was very common for the Dixons to drive to “Grandma’s house” for Sunday dinner. In the summer time the two families would often drive together to Loon Lake or Cass Lake for swimming and a picnic.

During the period 1934 to 1939 John Dixon was less that five years old and was deemed too young to attend movies. When Laura and Leonard Dixon felt the need of some entertainment, “Grandma Kyro” was called upon for baby sitting duty. Anna Kyro loved children and was happy to watch little Johnny whenever necessary. She was a generous woman and did her best to spoil her first-born grandchild. She often sang an old Finnish lullaby which John still remembers:

Sutta lunda, sutta vettah, sutta beane rakattah
Kuka on kasken Johnnin ota Aitin tuscusta makatah

translation:
(It’s raining snow, it’s raining rain, it’s raining little white rabbits)
(Who authorized Johnny to take candy from mother’s pocket)

When Erick and a fellow student organized a flying club at Wayne University in 1937 his parents may have had concerns about the dangers of flying but they never expressed them to Erick. They backed him financially to get the flying club started. The club purchased a light airplane and Erick learned to fly and soon had his pilot’s license. Most similar flying clubs went broke. But the Wayne University club was considered highly successful since it remained financially solvent.

In December 1937 William Kyro was the manager for the Detroit performance of the American tour of the Helsinki University Male Chorus. He booked the Masonic Temple in Detroit and did all of the advance promotional and advertising work for the visit He arranged for the entire chorus to be entertained by the Ford Motor Company with a tour of the massive Rouge manufacturing operation followed by a visit to the Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village. When the chorus reached the workshop of Thomas A. Edison, they sang a Latin ode written by Horace and often sung at the funerals of scientists. Finally the chorus enjoyed a banquet at the Ford corporate headquarters. The Detroit concert and visit was a great success for the Chorus. This event is described in the book, “History of Finns in Michigan.”

One of the Finnish singers was the dashing Harri Virjo who was delighted to meet William’s pretty daughter, Helen Kyro, then 24 years old.

In 1938 Helen Kyro made a summer vacation trip to Finland on the Polish passenger ship "Batory". To obtain free passage, Helen played piano in the ship's orchestra. In Finland she visited Jan Sibelius and his wife at their summer home. At that time, Sibelius was perhaps the most famous classical composer in the world. It was a pleasant visit. Helen presented Sibelius with a box of Cuban cigars which Sibelius appreciated. Sibelius gave Helen a personally autographed copy of his music which she preserved, bound in leather. It was one of her most treasured possessions. Helen was courted by Harri Virjo in Finland.

In 1938 William made contact with a New York businessman who imported Finnish language films for distribution in the United States. William negotiated exclusive rights to show the films in Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio. He made contracts with theater owners or managers to advertise and screen the special Finnish motion pictures and to divide the ticket proceeds -- 60% to the theater owner and 40% to William.

Later, William purchased his own set of two 35 mm Holmes motion picture projectors and developed a plan to show the movies at Finnish halls and in the open air at Finnish summer camps. He outfitted a 1937 Dodge 4-door sedan with an external rack for the portable movie screen, removed the rear seat to provide space for the projectors, film containers, and sound equipment, and traveled around the Midwest showing his films. At some halls the screening of the Finnish films was followed by a dance to music from records played on the portable sound system.

In 1939 Erick took the fall semester off from the University of Michigan to travel in Northern Michigan to book Finnish films in theaters and to earn money for continuing his education. On one occasion the films were shipped late from the distributor in New York and Erick met the train at an earlier station and rushed the film by automobile through winter weather to the destination theater just in time for the showing.

Laura Dixon earned some extra money by addressing postcards to advertise Detroit showings of the Finnish films. She scanned the Detroit city phone book and copied the address for each Finnish-sounding name. These movies were shown at the Oakman Theater, since many Detroit Finns lived nearby. John Dixon attended some of the showings as a small boy. He recalls one young man, obviously not a Finn, walking out ot the theater bitterly complaining because the sound track of the film was entirely in Finnish.

The business of promoting and showing Finnish films expanded to bookings and travel into the far West with both William and Anna engaged in the enterprise. It was the first visit to California for both. They drove separate cars. One made advance arrangements and the other arrived later to show the films.

One night Anna dreamed that her car stopped running. The next morning she started the engine and could hear that it was running properly. Nevertheless she took it to a repair shop for a checkup. The mechanic discovered that the fan belt was in tatters. While replacing the belt, he remarked that Anna had been lucky - if she had continued on her trip without checking the engine she would have been stranded in the Arizona desert when the fan belt broke and the car overheated.

With the start of World War II and the change to a war time economy, William and Anna returned to Detroit and discontinued the business of showing Finnish films.

In 1939 Leonard & Laura Dixon moved their gift shop to a new location at 12940 Grand River Avenue. Grand River Avenue was one of the major traffic arteries of the city. It included a street car line and ran from downtown Detroit out of the city and across the state where it ended at an actual river in Grand Rapids Michigan in the western side of the state. That river is named the Grand River.