Aimo Aukusti Tervakoski

If there's a sauna in Heaven, Aimo Tervakoski has surely already found it - and probably invited half the place to join him. Aimo passed away peacefully on October 19th in Lake Worth, Florida, at the age of 86, leaving behind a lifetime of laughter and lessons in how to live fully and fearlessly.
Born on a small farm in Haapajärvi, Finland, to Aukusti and Aino (Nikula) Tervakoski, Aimo grew up with hard work in his hands and adventure in his heart. The youngest of five, and preceded in death by his parents and sisters Salli, Hilma, Hilkka, and Siiri, he spent his youth balancing farm chores with fast rides on his Jawa motorcycle.
In 1969, on his 30th birthday, Aimo boarded a plane for the United States knowing zero English but armed with an unshakable belief that the world was meant to be explored. In Minneapolis, he met Arlene at a Finnish dance hall, and their enthusiastic dance steps led to 54 years of marriage inseparably by each other's side.
During his first years in America, Aimo welded for Ford assembly lines in Minnesota and missile factories in Maryland with craftsmanship that helped shape both cars and history. Then in 1982, he and Arlene channeled their entrepreneurial spirit into Memories of Finland, an import store that became a beloved hub for Finnish goods - from pulla bread to Puukko knives - and a gathering place for Finns and Finnophiles.
From the start, Aimo wanted to see and understand the world far from where he had grown up. That spirit of exploration began in the early 1970s when he and Arlene took a road trip across Europe in a van fueled more by enthusiasm than diesel. Over the following decades, from Moscow to Rio, Tokyo to Belgrade, Aimo made it his mission to experience the world and strike up conversations wherever he went.
Aimo was living proof that it's never too late to do something new, so long as you have loved ones by your side. After selling the business in 2003, he and Arlene retired to spend summers in Mountain Iron, Minnesota, and winters in south Florida, splitting the good life between the northwoods and the Atlantic coast. In Florida he took up singing tenor in a Finnish men's choir and volunteered to support Winter War veterans; in Minnesota he fished daily and tended the tomatoes at Cherry Greenhouse. A proud American, Aimo's birth country also always remained close to his heart. He never turned down either lutefisk or the volume on his polka albums.
And oh, how he loved to fish - deep-sea charters, small lakes in Minnesota, it didn't matter. He could pull anything from the sea: barracudas, hogfish, sailfish, and (like all good fishermen) the occasional tall tale. He took joy in teaching his sons and grandchildren how to cast a lure, and how to stretch a story just far enough to make it worth telling.
Aimo never lost his thick accent or desire to connect with anyone he met, even if the former sometimes got in the way of the latter. Whether in a hardware store, on a cruise ship, or a buffet line (none of which he ever met without enthusiasm), he could make friends instantly. His storytelling and comedic timing were prodigious. He was an extrovert who also loved solitude, a joker who could spend hours tending his garden or waiting for a bluegill to take his bobber underwater.
He is survived by his beloved wife, Arlene; his sons Eric (Angel) and Mark (Christa Watson); grandchildren Robin, Justin, Kristian, August, and Violet; great-grandson Odin; and many nieces, nephews, and family in Finland and Minnesota.
In lieu of flowers, consider making a donation to Finnish-American Village in Lake Worth, Florida; or, in Aimo's honor, make a stranger laugh, cast one more line (real or metaphorical) just to see what bites, or dance a polka like nobody's watching - except Aimo, who surely is.