Marstons Mills Historical Society

Interview with Taisto Ranta

(by Barbara Hill, Antonia Stephens &

Jim Gould)

2 December 2008

MARSTONS MILLSHISTORICAL SOCIETY

P.O. Box 1375 Marstons Mills, MA 02648

marstonsmillshistoiicol.org

I was bom in Sandwich, near the fish hatchery on Oct. 7 1920. My parents were from Finland,Mom from central Finland and Dad from the border of Finland and Lapland, so he knew allabout reindeer; he made our skis right in his shop. They came to this country before WorldWar I because the Russian army was invading. Because the menfolks were being conscripted

into the Russian army, their mothers wanted to get their sons out. Dad came on the second tolast voyage of the Lusitania before it was sunk by the Germans. Dad's work in Finland was

apprentice to a woodworker.

Here he got interested in forestry and worked with Eben Smith of Sandwich who planted a lot

of pine groves in Barnstable. He'd point out trees they had planted, like the ones on Old StageRd just before the water tower. Then he became interested in woodworking, then switched tobecome a contractor/builder. He built some of the first houses on Craigville Beach before

there was a bridge across the river, and they had to ferry supplies across the river.

I had one brother, Tamo who died in a hunting accident. Mom worked as a semi-domestic,doing cooking for wealthy people at Craigville Beach. In the early 20s we moved fromSandwich to West Barnstable, on the street next to the Rooster Church. Then we moved to a56 acre farm near exit 5 which a brother had found—all of [Dad's] brothers were very brotherly,and liked each other. [My father's brother lived in Hyannis, working as a landscaper/caretaker.His other brothers were in the Fitchburg area where they were dairy farmers, so we had to bedairy farmers too. The Finnish community was "one big family". When I went to school I didn'tknow a word of English, and had trouble saying that I needed a bathroom call.] Our farm

belonged to Christian Johnson, whose missus didn't like farming, so we swapped houses for adollar We had cows, cattle, horses and pigs. We sold dairy [products, milk and cream], eggs

and cut chickens which we sold to the Cape Cod Hospital before and during the Depression.We were self-sufficient. Every fall we'd butcher calves, and Gifford would smoke the pork. Wegrew our own grain, which we threshed. We had a vegetable garden which we had to weed,but got paid enough money to buy firecrackers for Fourth of July. The farm was located onwhat is now the eastbound lane of Route 6, and it's now the first house on the Service Roadoff Route 6, where it was moved. The highway cut the farm apart.

Hunting was as big a thing as golf is today. I shot my first deer when I was 12 years old.Between hunting and fishing there was a lot of food coming into the house. I walked a mile toschool in West Barnstable, where the public hall is. You walked even if the snow was a coupleof feet deep. When we went to high school we went by bus run by Ernest Cameron, a modelA, maybe model T frame on which he put a small building which we called "the chicken coop".

Many things happened in Marstons Mills. There were polo games, after which the horsesneeded to cool off, so they'd let the boys jump on the horse to walk them around—we were

"real cowboys" Once my brother took a horse which some kid slapped on the rear, which

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knocked off my brother and he got a concussion. Some of the race car drivers took him to the

Hyannis hospital, and drove awful fast. Before the polo there were dirt car races in open

Auburns which could "go like the dickens". Before the Danforths bought the place the Daniel

brothers had a farm there which raised their own grain, threshed it there and stored it in a big

bin. They raised a huge amount of turnips.

The Marstons Mills herring run was "a kid's delight". When I was Natural Resources Officer for

the town they were worried about the herring not getting thru. Dave Leland had built a lot of an

electrical plant which blocked the river. I got a big crane and cleaned up on the southerly side

[of Rt. 28]. [We worked from a state survey of herring runs by Robert Bolden]. The first time

[about 1946] they repaired the herring run they used Civil War veterans to dig a ditch from salt

water to the pond, but there are some glacial till deposits in between that clog up the flow, so

wooden planking was necessary. But the eels that come from the Southern Sea bore holes in

the planking, and the water makes the holes bigger. When they filled the holes, the eels dug

underneath. Finally, about 20 to 25 years ago the town lined the run with concrete. Eels did

the same thing to the concrete. [The vets also dug a run from Hamblin's Pond underneath

Route 149, past the dump, to saltwater. As a kid people would take their trash by horse and

wagon to the dump. There was a shanty at the bottom of the valley where the dump keeper

kept a record, but there were no fees. Abandoned motor vehicles were just left there].

I became [the first] town Natural Resources Officer. Going back, the reason was hunting out of

season, which everyone did. So they decided to get an enforcer. "So, to be a crook, get a

crook". They gave a test, open to all. 43 passed, and I got the highest mark. "Sure and the

dickens I was appointed" in 1962. The salary was $27 a month. "I thought so much what I'd

done wrong myself. "Holy catfish"-My first assignment was

Sandy Neck. People came out there with alcohol, and in scanty attire, (n my first week there

was a big brawl—and there were plenty of them! A woman came to the gatehouse and said

"they're killin' my boyfriend". So I drove her down to the beach, and "sure 'n heck he was

bleeding from the head" (pointing to his right temple). I told them if they didn't stop there'd be a

police car at the entrance. So they calmed down and even helped me get him to the hospital.

"I had a gun, but never used it" but I had a radio, and all I had to do was threaten to call the

police. The summer cottage people paid no attention. There was a shooting there once where

an Osterville guy shot a Marstons Mills man, but the bullet bounced off his belt buckle. One

fellow threatened me with a bottle, but quieted down when I told him all I had to do was to

phone and a cop would be there.

[My only arrest was in the spring when prom parties were quite the rage. There was a lot of

alcohol and boys doing what boys will do. On weekends and holidays they'd come from the

big cities, like Brockton and New Bedford. It became a real nightmare, so the best the police

could do was to string a wire from the Eaton coffee shop on the other side of 6A, on top of the

tar, and underground to the gate house. Actually there was a shooting there, so the town

decided to put an officer there. But he became a buddy to everyone I worked at Sandy Neck

'til I retired in '89. So the first morning I got there it was a Sunday. That was when the woman

came to me and said, "they're killin' my boyfriend!" I had a four-wheel drive, and found there

were 20 or 30 of them. When I asked who was responsible there was dead silence. So I said

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"You're not going to get out of here, unless you go to Provincetown or swim", and phoned the

police. They realized they were not King Tut and calmed down.]

[The arrest came when young people became quite belligerent I advised them there was no

alcohol allowed, and no glass containers. When he became abusive I asked for a voluntary

search. One man jumped into his car, backed up and hit my leg. I said, "You're under arrest."

We got a big haul of liquor. For a while I stored this in my basement as evidence. Finally we

got the equivalent of two big pickup truckloads and took it to the dump. There were 100 yards

of beer cases and bottles. A bulldozer got on top and nothing happened. We then got a

backhoe to smash them, and it made a river.]

I was also Shellfish Warden. The cycles of plenty and scarcity are not understood. I had

deputies "who knew how to milk the cow from all ends of the cow". They were political

appointees, whom a politician would recommend, saying "He's a good boy". They would let

people get by with things that were not allowed. There was a baker's delivery man who fished

for trout in Hamblin's Pond, always catching under-size trout. I was too far away to see what

he was catching. But when he came ashore I found that he always carried a thermos bottle in

which he put them. As for the people of Marstons Mills, I had the most trouble with their

hunting and fishing.

I married "the prettiest girl in the class"-"Hear that, Mom?" [Her Souza family came with the

early settlers down-Cape, Harwich and Chatham. Her dad came from New Bedford and did

landscaping, then worked as a plumber in Hyannis. Their children were all girls—the boy

came late in life.] We were married in 1942 when I was in the service, in the Navy. I got a

Purple Heart for a wound in the North Atlantic. [We had a real Shootout and disabled a sub

that tried to torpedo us. Our captain got killed when they fired on the fo'castle. The second in

command came up and took charge. He ordered "All hands, all hands, stand by to ram". We

hit him a little behind the conning tower. All destroyers were equipped for ramming. We were

interlocked with each other, but the sub kept going. We caught on the fanguard which protects

the propeller, and it tore a big gash in the sub; they sank and went down with some

tremendous explosions as the pressure blew up the torpedoes. We limped into Brooklyn Navy

Yard, which was not far away.]

[I was wounded after the sub wiped out the 45 mm crew midships. With the loading crew gone

I took over as chief gunner. We depressed the gun as the Germans were shooting toward us.

Turret 3 behind me was also depressed and shot right across my scalp. It was friendly fire;

others were also hit.]

I was also in the invasion of Sicily, at Anzio, and southern France, where German tanks were

close enough to hit us. Then we went to the Pacific, to Wake where we had a shoot-out with

the Japs, and escorted the Oklahoma. We sank three Jap subs. My first ship, before Pearl

Harbor, was the battleship Texas. Since we were not yet in the war we took a unit of British

soldiers around Africa and landed them as "students" studying the war. My next ship took

Marines to Iceland where we saw the midnight sun. At the end I was on a destroyer which

accompanied the Missouri into Tokyo Bay for the surrender. The scariest part of the whole

war was the kamikazis.

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Added topics discussed on 2 Dec-see transcript:

Fish in MM Ponds

Haying on the Great Marshes

Sauna

Beekeeping

Conflict of cranberries and herring

Took slides of work on herring run.