The Hemmer House

This beautiful yellow building, Hemmer House, represents the rebuilt town of Vaasa and the wooden houses that were built in the Klemetsö district, where the town was moved after the devastating fire of 1852. This house was the childhood home of the famous. Fenno-Swedish poet and author, Jarl Hemmer. He was born in 1893, and as an adult he lived in Helsinki and Porvoo as well as on Eckerö island. But it was in Vaasa that he first started to write poems,  inspired for instance by walks under blooming bird cherry trees with the love of his youth, Maggie. As an author, Jarl wrote novels and poems that have been translated into many languages, and also set to music and made into films. His books remain  part of the Fenno-Swedish literary tradition. In the year 1918, Hemmer got married to Saga Söderman, and the couple had two children. In 1944, his career was brought to a sudden stop when his melancholy, personal tragedies and his problems with drug abuse and various addictions finally caught up with him, ending in his tragic suicide. In Hemmer House, there is a memorial room containing his own library, and some of his personal belongings.