Anna Louisa Mykkanen

Birth: 1877, Finland Death: Jul. 5, 1903 Crow Wing County Minnesota, USA

The Evergreen Cemetery Directory of the Dead says she was 28.

The monument says she was 26.

                   Olympic Tragedy

     It's a bittersweet story of Olympic glory and tragedy of Olympic-sized proportions that happened nearly 100 years ago in Brainerd.

     A young Brainerd mother of four drowned in the swift Mississippi River currents in Rice Lake as her young children watched from ashore.

     The unusual part is that the young Finnish immigrant was an Olympic swimming champion. Only years earlier she had won gold medals in the 1896 Olympics, the first Olympics held in modern times, in both endurance and speed swimming, according to her granddaughter.

     Her name was Anna (Heinoja) Mykkanen, a woman whom her granddaughter, Shirley (Mykkanen) Niederer, Merrifield, is very proud of.

     Anna (Heinoja) Mykkanen's grave is in Evergreen Cemetery in Brainerd. She was buried with her Olympic gold medal because the medal meant so much to her

     In 1896, Anna was among a handful of women who were allowed to compete unofficially in the first Olympic games held in Athens, Greece, said Niederer. While the international competition was restricted to only men until the 1900 Olympics, there is evidence that a few of the best female athletes from various countries competed unofficially at this historic event, too.

     The 19-year-old girl from Finland won the gold in both endurance and speed swimming. Shaped like a Greek olive branch or laurel, the Olympic gold medal with tiny globes, which signified each win, never left the young woman's neck, her granddaughter said. She wore it as a necklace. It was her most prized possession, and one that she took with her as she left her life in Finland a few years later when she came to America, settling first in Michigan and then Brainerd.

     She married Henrick Mykkanen in 1898, and proudly wore her Olympic necklace in their wedding photograph. The couple founded the former Finnish Lutheran Church in southeast Brainerd, which has since been torn down. They lived in Brainerd for four years and quickly had four children.

     On Saturday, July 3, 1903, while attending the church's Sunday school picnic along with other women and children from her church, Anna decided to swim far out to her husband who was fishing in a boat on Rice Lake, according to the July 5, 1903, edition of the Brainerd Dispatch.

     She obviously was an excellent swimmer, but perhaps too confident in her aquatic abilities that day. The Mississippi River currents were swift as they entered Rice Lake.

     In those days, logs were floated down the river from the north to the paper mill in Brainerd. As she swam, Anna suddenly found herself cut off from the shore by a large flow of logs. She dove underneath the logs to swim to shore and her long blonde hair became entangled in a tree stump under the water when she crossed an eddy under the logs.

     Sadly, at the age of 26, Anna drowned, leaving behind a grieving husband, four young children and her Olympic swimming medal.

     Shortly after she died, her husband wrote a detailed history of his wife's life, a legacy that was passed down through their four children to their descendants who still live in the Brainerd and Pine River areas, among them are the Mykkanens, Heinos, Niederers and Helstrom families.

     Anna (Heinoja) Mykkanen is now buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Brainerd. Hanging around her neck is that Olympic medal she cherished when she was alive.

     Her granddaughter wishes her grandfather would have kept it to show Anna's children and grandchildren, but yet she understands why he did it.

     "He felt she won it and it was very dear to her heart," said Niederer. "He said she deserved to have it forever." (Brainerd Dispatch, 02 October 2000) 

Burial: Evergreen Cemetery Brainerd Crow Wing County Minnesota, USA Plot: Block 14, Lot 72, SWC S 1/2