By today’s standards, the family living in Ainola in the early 20th century was a large one: mother and father as well as their daughters Eva, Ruth, Katarina, Margareta and Heidi. From the 1910s onwards, two women, Aino Kari and Helmi Vainikainen, also lived with the family permanently as domestic help. Furthermore, Heikki “Hesa” Sormunen occupied the basement room whenever he was staying in Ainola, and as a result the room got the name Hesa’s room.
When Sibelius himself was at home, his work set the pace for daily life in Ainola. He worked mostly at night and, thus, got up later than the rest of his family. The daughters got used to the demands of silence, and it did not feel oppressive to them.
“Father’s work restricted the life of the rest of the family. All of us daughters played musical instruments, the piano and in the case of me also the violin and the viola, but we could never practice when father was around. When he took his long daily walk around the Ainola park and forest, the Temple as he called it, we practised our instruments. When he returned, the house was quiet again.”
–Margareta Jalas
Life followed a strict schedule: “At 10am, pappa and mamma” left for a walk. Before that, the family had had coffee around nine and breakfast was served at noon. Afternoon coffee was enjoyed between two and three, and dinner, a plentiful one according to Helmi Vainikainen, was eaten around five or six.
Aino Sibelius was in charge of planning all the meals, ordering stocks and organising guests’ visits. Her most important assistants were housemaid Aino Kari and cook and nanny Helmi Vainikainen, both of whom worked for the family for nearly sixty years. Over the decades, the division of labour became seamless, and there was no upstairs-downstairs split in Ainola.
The household also included animals: chickens and three roosters called Mikko, Matti and Pekka. Ottila the pig moved to America every autumn, and a new piglet came to the house in the spring. A horse called Vilkku stayed in Ainola for a few years. Heikki “Hesa” Sormunen lived in the basement room of the main house until the 1940s and looked after the horse and worked as a caretaker of Ainola. After him, Unto Siimes, the next-door neighbour, attended to any maintenance work in Ainola for many years.
“Right now, his 1st Symphony is being played in Switzerland. The reception is not always the best, but when you know the composition well, you can block any disruptive background noises and focus solely on the music. Right now, the music plays beautifully. You can imagine the pleasure. To be able to sit here, in our own home in the forest and listen to what you enjoy the most.”
–Aino Sibelius
In their later years, Aino and Jean Sibelius enjoyed visits from their children and grandchildren, as well as from many leading figures in the music world. Some old friends remained close through correspondence, and the radio provided an important past time with Sibelius’ music being played in various countries almost daily.