8. Settling in Detroit

The William Kyro family returned to Detroit in 1927 and settled down for good. During the 1920s, the automobile industry was growing rapidly and Detroit was a boomtown.

Detroit is one of the oldest cities in the midwestern United States. It was founded by a French nobleman, Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac, in 1701 when he constructed Fort Ponchartrain. The site was chosen because the high river bank made the land dry and suitable for constructing houses, fortifications and docks for loading and unloading ships. Cadillac named the settlement “Ponctchartrain d’Etroit.” “d’Etroit,” is French and means “of the strait.” Detroit was originally a French town but became British in 1760 as a result of the French and Indian wars. “Detroit” is the anglicized version of the French “d’Etroit.” The city became part of the United States in 1796.

Laura Kyro majored in Art at Cass Technical High School, the premier high school of the city. Laura was especially talented in art. After Cass Tech, she attended a private art school.

Laura received a diary for her 16th birthday on March 23, 1927. Her son, John Dixon, now has this diary. It provides a fascinating picture of daily life in the Kyro household during 1927 and 1928. The adult Kyros believed that it was important to establish good work habits early. Both Helen and Erick Kyro delivered newspapers. The Kyro household was one of the social centers of the Finnish community in Detroit. There were frequent dinner parties.

Movies were a common form of entertainment. On April 20 1927 the Kyros viewed “The Scarlet Letter” starring Lillian Gish. The Kyro family often attended the Oakman Theater on Oakman Boulevard, the Grand Riveria on Grand River Avenue, and the Michigan on Bagley Avenue. At the time, all movies were silent. The first talking picture, “The Jazz Singer” opened in the fall of 1927. It was not until about 1930 that all movies had sound.

Around this time, the Kyro family owned a pet dog. Laura Kyro was especially fond of the animal. The dog was killed by an automobile. Laura Kyro found this event so painful that she vowed never to own another dog.

On May 20, 1927 an obscure airmail pilot named Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field, New York and headed out into the Atlantic Ocean. Upon landing in Paris, he suddenly became the most famous man on the planet. Erick Kyro was 11 years old at the time and hawked his newspapers shouting “Lindenberg lands in Paris.” Although he had the name wrong, nevertheless, he made a clear profit of 50 cents that evening and Lindbergh became his hero.

Lindbergh’s mother was a teacher of chemistry at Cass Tech and Laura Kyro was one of her students. During the flight a reporter called Laura fishing for some juicy item that could be worked up into a tear-jerking story about Mrs. Lindbergh’s worry about her son. Laura had no use for the reporter’s prying questions and invited him to “go sit on a tack.”

In 1928 Helen Kyro entered Cass Technical High School to major in Music. Helen was musically and academically brilliant. While at Cass Tech, she also attended the Detroit Conservatory of Music studying classical piano. William and Anna invested in a grand piano for Helen. Both Laura and Helen had fine singing voices and frequently performed at social events singing duets in English and Finnish.

Laura Kyro was an excellent student, but in 1928 she became bored and, resisting the wishes of her parents, she refused to finish her last year at Cass Technical High School. Instead she attended an art school. This stubbornness was perhaps an example of the negative side of that Finnish characteristic sisu.

William continued to sell insurance. He made frequent road trips to sell in nearby cities and towns. And he continued to be highly successful. On one occasion an Ohio insurance company awarded him a silver watch for selling $100,000 worth of insurance in one year. In those days $1000 was a typical size of an insurance policy. A sale as large as $5000 was very rare. But William had his eye on the hot new field of radio.

Regularly scheduled radio broadcasting began in 1920. In Detroit, WWJ (originally 8MK) began operation on August 20, 1920. The next night it broadcast the results of an election. The station was owned and operated by the Detroit News. It promoted itself as "WWJ Radio One, Where it All Began, August 20, 1920." (KDKA in Pittsburgh also claims to be the first radio broadcasting station beginning November 2, 1920. It all depends on what criteria one uses.) Radio broadcasting rapidly spread across the entire nation.

In September of 1929, William and Anna established a jewelry and music store in the Barclay building on Woodrow Wilson avenue near Davison street in central Detroit. The family lived in an apartment in the same building. In addition to the jewelry and musical instruments, the store sold the newly-popular "all-electric" radios. Laura, the oldest daughter, worked in the store as a sales clerk. While working in the store she met Leonard Dixon and they began to date.

In the 21st century a radio is a small, low cost item made with transistors. But in the 1920's a radio was a much larger device equipped with vacuum tubes and, at first, powered by a wet 6-volt "A" battery and dry "B" batteries Radios were usually housed in furniture-quality wooden cabinets. Table model radios were about one or two cubic feet in size. Floor model radios came in large, waist-high wooden cabinets. Some required two people to comfortably lift them. A radio was considered a piece of furniture and the cost was substantial. Radios were often purchased under an installment contract which required a down payment and monthly payments for a year or more.