THE FINNISH BATH

By Phyllis Loomis

 

 

Early in my senior year of high school (1941) Mrs. Wells (Daddy's secretary) and her husband, introduced us to the Finnish baths which were housed in a large garage on Second Street. This strange new adventure soon became a weekly ritual for Daddy, Mother, Martha, and me. As I recall, Bob [Phyllis' brother] was in college and never even knew about the pleasures of long evenings of pampering your bodies. Bill [the other one] may have been with us every Friday evening. I do not remember.

 

Second Street, just one block above the bay, was a short street that came to an abrupt end where the shoreline caused confusion somewhere near Plum Street. I never could remember just where the end was, but right there, where the bay poked a finger into the Scandinavian immigrant section of the city, was the location of the Finnish bath. The street was narrow and poorly paved right on top of the original cobble stones. Houses piled up so close to one another there was little room for grass or trees along the sidewalks. Each set of two houses shared a gravel driveway that ate up what side yard there might have been.

 

The bath was never easy to find, for it stood like all the other garages, at the far end of one of those driveways. Each week we walked down the street thankful when Mrs. Wells had arrived on time and would lead us with confidence to the proper drive. Mother, with her love of adventure and penny providence experiences in the immigrant sections of the city, must have been a bit excited by this weekly adventure. Timid, ritualistic Daddy must have suffered moments of insecurity each Friday night. Nonetheless, after the first night, The Bath became our family Friday night ritual that was seldom, if ever, missed by either of my parents.

 

Just inside the small door at the front right corner of the garage stood a table piled high with large, soft, fresh, well worn, white towels. The attendant, in a white uniform and bare feet, stood behind the table. She collected twenty-five cents from each bather and directed the men to go down the narrow white hall across the front of the garage while the women took the hall that led down the side of the building.

 

The women's half of the steam baths consisted of three whitewashed rooms. The first was small and empty of furniture. Its walls were lined with a row of pegs upon which ladies hung their clothing. On our first visit, the attendant went with us to show us that first room and to explain that all of our belongings would be left there before we proceeded to the next room, through the door on the opposite wall. We were invited to take our towel with us. On that first evening, my towel quickly became my security blanket. Still, we were a family of three women who certainly knew each other's bodies well, and then there was poor Mrs. Wells, who was Daddy's beautiful secretary with her store-bought suits, carefully applied make-up and blue-gray hair. How did she feel about shedding her all, and standing in her birthday suit before her boss's wife? I thought a lot about that on our first night of bathing together. I also thought about Mother's more realistic feelings about Mrs. Wells once she had been stripped to her basic self.

When we were all ready, we opened the door and walked into the middle room. The temperature was warmer here. In fact, it was hot in this long, thin room. The wood floor was warm on my bare feet. There were white-sheeted cots, head to foot, lining both sides of the room. Each cot held at least one woman sitting or lying down upon it. Some were partly covered with their towels, but most of the women had long gotten over being shy about their bodies. There was not one young person to be seen. In fact, from a seventeen year old's point of view, everyone was either old, very old, or perhaps already dead. Those who were flattened out on white sheets did not move when we entered the room and could very easily have slipped into heaven leaving their white, misshapen bodies stretched out and ignored for hours, to be found at the close of the evening after all others had gone home.

I was shocked at the many varieties a woman's body could and did take. One lady was shaped like a collection of many kinds of citrus fruits. One was very thin while another reminded me of an ice cream cone. Her shoulders were broad man. Her legs were beautifully shaped right down to her racehorse ankles and little girl feet. She was rock solid from top to bottom and placed a great deal of responsibility on her two small feet. A very old lady stood up and I feared she was melting down into her swollen ankles. Her skin stretched over collarbones and shoulder blades. Her breasts lay upon her stomach much like twin flaps on an envelope. Her stomach was creased down the middle by a scar that ran from her breastbone to her pubic hair, dividing that stomach into two more flaps that dripped onto her upper thighs. Her knees were dimpled and seemed to be the beginning of bluish purple knots that wiggled down to her swollen ankles and purple feet. She stood up to offer us a place to sit. She was a jolly lady who quickly talked us unto feeling as if we had bathed each night of our lives with this friendly group of women. Everyone had beautiful, flawless skin; pink and white and begging to be caressed.

It took some time to acclimatize to the heat of the room. However, the occupants were so casual and friendly. we soon felt right at home and ready to spend the evening.

After a while, the door at the far end of the room opened. A great cloud of steam poured through the opening while several steaming women, mopping their faces with their towels, came through the doorway into our room. Folks shifted around to make room for the hot ones. It was then that one of the oldsters said it was time for us to go into the steam room.Until that faraway door opened, I had thought we were experiencing all there would be of our evening at the bath. Now, as I relive the shock of seeing those exhausted ladies stagger through the door and to the nearest cots, I know I couldn't have been more upset were I being led into a Holocaust gas chamber. I stood up and went with my mother, my sister, and Mrs. Wells. Like sheep we each picked up a fresh washcloth from a stack by the door and followed a woman we had known less than an hour into what I knew was Hell!

This room was the smallest of the three with a very warm cement floor which dipped down to a drain in the middle. There was a small wood stove in one corner and benches lining the opposite two walls. Above the benches a small balcony held another bench. Climbing a four-step ladder to reach the balcony where there was headroom for sitting on the bench was done if you felt you could stand more heat.

Buckets, scrub brushes, bar soap, and willow switches were sprinkled about the floor and the benches. A cold water spigot stood at the top of a two-foot pipe not very far away from the stove corner.

We each staggered to the lower benches. where we quickly held our washcloth over our nose and mouth. Soaking the cloth in cold water from the tap made breathing easier. In no time at all we were all covered with our own sweat, showering from the inside, and surprisingly feeling better. One soon learned to take a drink from the tap while watering the washcloth.

When we were all adjusted to this damp heat, our leader suggested we try switching each other, or ourselves, with the willow switches. Just lightly tapping yourself with a leafy branch when your body has, for some time, been your mental focus, is an exciting pleasure.

On that very first night, before we left the third room. we had all switched ourselves, washed in cold water with a scrub brush and bar soap and even sat up on the balcony. Sometime just before we staggered out and to waiting cots, the attendant came in to drip some cold water onto the stove and thus create hot steam to warm us all up a bit more.

A cooling off, resting period is necessary before one returns to the inner room for a second or third steaming. Most people go home after one scrubbing. We young ones thought it all such a wonderful delight, we never went home before at least two round trips. Mother and Mrs. Wells found the white cots following their first bath suited their needs.

Women are summoned to go home by a knock on the wall and a deep voice speaking their name.

On our way home that first night, Daddy told us the men had a large, round poker table in their middle room. The men sat around the table and played poker as they warmed up from outside or cooled off after the steam room.

Our first night was so wonderful, it was hard to wait a whole week for Friday to come again. On the second week we began a ritual of soup and crackers for supper before the bath, and packing a small bag of pajamas to wear home. That made hopping into bed quick and easy. Sleep was guaranteed.