Leena Åkerman, formerly Kuula, told her childhood friend who lived next door about the plan that threatens the trees in the yard of her home in Toivola. A friend living in the United States, Karin Mohler, formerly Frisk, immediately wrote this story about this horse chestnut tree. Here is its original text in English and the translation to Finnish can be found at this link.

Was it just another handsome tree?

Leena told me about the widening of the street and she was and is worried about her tree…so here it goes.

We give some things great importance, because we know that with their presence, we have a reminder of a certain wonderful reality, even if from long ago, like Christmas.
   We have memories we hold dear and in an ever changing world we need these memories to remain constant, undisturbed
   This is Leena’s story as I remember…
Like our house that has been in Nummela since my memory started, there is a tall tree that has weathered all the storms of my life.   This tree started as a chestnut given to me by someone and I marveled at the shiny thing as I held it in my hands.  It was smooth, silky slick, chocolate brown and perfect. The chestnut seed held a fascination I could not explain or imagine.  I was told that this seed would produce a mighty tree with beautiful blossoms if planted in the right place at the right time.
    I was a young child and the world was still filled with wonder.  I took my chestnut to my Mom and asked her to plant it with me in the right place because it was going to be a beautiful tree, different from all our other trees, with magnificent blossoms and the possibility to produce more chocolate colored shiny chestnuts to play with.
My Mom looked at me and realized that this planting procedure was as important  to me as was the little kitten I needed to have.  It was going to be MY TREE.
    I know now that my Mom with wisdom and tender loving care selected just the right spot and time to plant this seed , and her heart was moved by the hope in her young daughter’s  eyes.
     The chestnut was planted close to the entrance to our property and my impatient eyes looked and looked for this young tree to make an appearance.
    Time goes slowly when you wait for your wonder, yet one day the ground broke and the first fingers of my chestnut tree stretched their way out of the warm, rich soil of it’s new home in Nummela.
    And the tree grew, and grew and I proudly told people that this was MY tree.
Now, in 2007, the tree stands tall and guards the entrance to my childhood home.  I have walked by it as a young bride, I carried  my babies in and out, I looked up into it’s canopy when my beloved Dad died  and later, years later when my  Mom died, the tree stood there.
    Friends have come and gone, the tree remained.  Every season it remembered to give me joy with the young buds, then the blossoms and in Fall when the handsome foliage turned color and fell to the ground I saw this magnificent chestnut tree with all it’s branches reach for the sky.
     The tree has been there. More than 50 years have passed. Sometimes I hardly notice it anymore, it is part of the landscape, part of my life until yesterday…
I was notified that the street  in front of our house needs to be widened, traffic demands more space. My chestnut tree is in their way.