THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 24, 1995 TAG: 9511240078
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TONI WHITT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 128 lines
Nora Kuun hopes to gather four generations of her family around her at the docks of the Little Creek Amphibious Base today to celebrate their pilgrimage to this country 50 years ago.
For Nora and her three daughters - Aimi, Inga and Ulla - that spot was their first view of their new home after fleeing Estonia, which had been taken over by Communist Russia. For the first time, the grandchildren and one great-grandchild will see where their family stepped onto American soil.
From August through Dec. 15, 1945 - 128 days - the Kuun family endured a journey across the Atlantic Ocean on a leaky 36-foot sailboat with 11 other Estonians seeking refuge.
Arvid Kuun, Nora's husband and a harbor pilot, was the only family member who had ever been on the water. He co-captained the Erma, the old wooden sailboat they traveled on.
``Arvid was the driving force in this family,'' said Chuck Kemman, of his father-in-law who died in 1988. ``He was a skilled seaman and navigator.''
His children said he also spoke five languages and was a talented musician and artist. A large canvas with a wooden sculpture of a sailboat and the ocean hangs over the living room couch in the family's Thalia home.
It has been 10 years since the entire family gathered in Virginia Beach. That was for Nora and Arvid's 50th wedding anniversary.
Aimi Brown, 60, and her husband Bill now live in Florida. Inga, 57, and her husband Jack Barrett are in Texas and Ulla and Chuck Kemman in Seattle. Inga, who inherited her father's artistic talents, teaches art. Aimi, an electrical engineer, received attention in the early 1960s as one of the few women in that ``complex field.'' Ulla, 53, is a psychologist.
``There's so much to be thankful for,'' Inga Barrett said. ``To be here in America.''
``As we were growing up, we didn't pay as much attention to family,'' Ulla said. ``It's nice we can all be together now. There's not a lot of years for us all to be together.''
The Kuun family was among the first Estonian refugees to come to America and for a while they were famous. The press followed their ``Americanization.'' President Harry Truman helped them gain citizenship. Reader's Digest, Newsweek and Time chronicled their crossing. Throughout high school, they the subject of news stories.
As for their prominence in the news, Aimi said she could have done well without it. But, Inga said, ``We were our normal selves, we never thought anything about it.''
The family still occasionally receives letters from former sailors on the John P. Gray, a Navy auxiliary transport that helped them during their last stormy days at sea. The former sailors want to know whatever became of the refugees and especially the family that stayed in Norfolk.
Originally, the Erma was headed for New York. A storm kept pushing them south and, by the time the John P. Gray found them on radar, they were pointed toward Norfolk.
``They gave us charts of the Norfolk harbor and told us to head for there,'' said Ulla.
In 1993, 48 years after their escape, Nora, accompanied by Ulla and Aimi, visited Estonia for the first time.
As they reminisced, they talked of that trip and their Uncle Leonheart who stayed in Estonia after the Germans and then the Russians took over. When half of his family left the country, he stayed, saying: ``If all the Estonians leave Estonia, who will fight for Estonia?''
``That was very patriotic,'' Nora said.
But for her family, she chose freedom.
As the turkey roasted and they gathered in the den of the house Arvid and Nora built in 1965, Nora and her daughters relived their journey.
``It was a lovely trip,'' said Nora..
``Mama, it wasn't lovely,'' said Aimi Brown and Ulla Kemman almost at once. ``What about the storms? We didn't think we would make it.''
Aimi was 10 when they began the journey and Ulla was 3.
They talked of Estonia and the family's escape first to Sweden and how the Russians almost forced them to return before they could sail to America. They talked of storms, icy November winds and having to share for days what little food they had.
But mostly they talked of good times. Of the kindness from strangers who gave them food and blankets when they put in to port in the British Isles and Madeira.
Of warm sunny days when everyone got a tan. Of learning English from ``Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' and naming two whales they encountered Grumpy and Sneezy.
And, of course, they talked about the sailors on the John P. Gray who dropped off supplies, filling the Erma with ham, potatoes, bread, water, coffee, cocoa and milk just before a snow storm. And how they received toys and gifts when they finally reached shore.
``I have been so happy here,'' Nora said.
``If we had survived (in Estonia) we wouldn't have been educated and we would have been working in factories,'' Ulla Kemman said.
Her children summed up Arvid and Nora's decision to sail across the ocean.
``For freedom they risked their lives and the lives of their children,'' Ulla said. ``It was a choice between a better life or no life at all.''
To Piper Kemman, Ulla's daughter, the story seems alien even though it is her family history.
``It seems very foreign because of the lives we lead today, it's hard to believe that kind of journey,'' said Piper, 25, who graduated from the University of Virginia in 1992. ``We've never had to deal with those kinds of decisions or that kind of journey. Our biggest worry is what to wear today.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
VICKI CRONIS
The Virginian Pilot
The four generations of Nora Kuun's family sat down to a
Thanksgiving Day feast in the family home in Thalia Thursday.
"There's so much to be thankful for," said Inga Barrett, one of Nora
Kuun's three daughters who endured the 1945 crossing of the Atlantic
Ocean.
The Kuun daughters arrive at Little Creek Amphibious Base Dec. 14,
1945, and along with 11 others get their first look at America after
a 128-day journey across the Atlantic aboard a leaky 36-foot
sailboat.
Nora Kuun, above, watches her granddaughter, Piper Kemman,
photograph the carving of the Thanksgiving turkey by her son-in-law,
Jack Barrett, in the family home in Thalia. At left, Aimi Brown,
holds her sister's granddaughter, Layne Little, 18 months old. To
Brown's left is her sister and brother-in-law, Inga and Jack
Barrett, and their daughter, Leslie Little.
VICKI CRONIS photos
The Virginian Pilot
by CNB