Our family has owned Ylöstalo farm since 1711. There is earlier information of the Norrby village from the 16th century. There were approximately 400,000 inhabitants in Finland in the 18th century.
At the beginning of the 20th century writer and journalist Ernst Lampen (later Iso-Keisari) spent his summers in Norrby. He wrote down the history of our family, when he was listening to the stories of the nearly 90-year-old family grandfather, Gammelfar Gustaf Wilhelm Bjur. Lampen had a good time in Särkisalo (at that time the place was called Finby), thanks to the local sea captains who had seen the world and were nice company for him.
The sailors had started on ships as a 14-year-old “jungmans”. The ships were built and equipped by villages and farms. The most talented became sea captains of ocean liners, and there were several of them in Finby, too.
Gammelfar was a hardworking and talkaktive businessman. He owned shares in several ships. At that time, peasant sailing, “bondesegling”, was still very important source of income, and thanks to a good marriage and successful real estate transactions, he finally owned all three farms in Norrby.
Gustaf Wilhelm also had his own ship, on which he made trips to Stockholm, Rääveli (Tallinn) and Helsinki.
The sailors used to bring new ideas and nice things to their families. Gammelfar was one of the first to paint his house, after having seen the houses around lake of Mälaren in Sweden. The skippers' homes had elegant furniture. The ladies got beautiful fabrics and scarves. The people of Perniö manors watched with a close eye the dressing of skipper’s families.
Gammelfar bought a farm for his third son, Elis. The house was named Strängnäs after Elis' favorite Swedish town (later Vahervaara). Steamships had already taken away the profitability of sailing ships, but Elis still had a couple of his own ships. As a young man, Elis managed to sneak under a tree where a cuckoo was singing. All wishes come true if you are lucky to do that. He made a wish that he would get the farm daughter, Matilda Bastman, as his wife and one child. The cuckoo heard wrong, and he got Matilda and 10 children. Normally, it is not possible to find out the mother's line from church records, but Matilda's family goes back to the nobles who were sent to Sweden and later to Finland in the 13th century.
Elis and his sons changed their last name to the Finnish lanquage Karimo. This reflects Iso-Keisari's Finnishness. Elis moved the farming from barley cultivation to cattle farming and fodder cultivation. More land was needed. Fishing had always been an important source of income, but now sailing ships had been replaced by the mining industry. There was no need to leave Särkisalo for bread in America, or even Sweden.
Elis's sons, Martti and Eino, continued farming in Länsitalo and Ylöstalo, Eero had a mink farm in Vahervaara. In Ylöstalo Pekka and Länsitalo Raimo Karimo, next generation, had sugar beet and pig farming. Tractors and other work machines were always replaced by bigger ones, so the doors of the garages also had to be enlarged. In the end, the farm size should have been at least tenfold. It was time to look in new directions.
In the 1980s, Pekka and his wife Sirkka began investing in tourism. Now the house is hold by Pekka's son Juha. Juha Karimo has rental cottages, rental boats, party house Villa Meri and the terrace restaurant Nixor located in Niksaari. The most important customer group are the autumn and spring fishing groups, which extend the season from the early spring to the late autumn. The sea brings bread to Ylöstalo once again.
