In the narrowest place along the Malmgatan is Ella Jansson’s cabin. The house was owned by Ella Jansson who worked as an accountant in Åbo and lived in the cottage at Malmen during the summer. Ella was one of four daughters in a salor´s family. At Ella’s death in 1988, the cottage was transferred to the Pargas Local History Association. The house’s 1940s interior is preserved in its original form as a living museum and is open to the audience when various events and markets are held at in Old Town.
People remember that Ella would have a Name Day party in her garden on July 20th with coffee with cream cake. “Margareta” was celebrated as Ellas’s second name.
Jansson’s three surviving daughters Ella, Alda and Ruth remained unmarried. Ella and Alda found employment in Åbo, Ruth worked as a cashier at the Pargas Savings Bank. The daughters shared an apartment in Åbo but were often staying in their home in Old Town.
Ellas father, the sailor Karl Wilhelm Jansson was Firstmate on the Pargas Kalkberg Company ships and barges, including the tugboat Atlas. Karl married Ellas mother Rosa Emerentia after his first wife, Axa Karolina died in 1893. Karl also sailed to foreign ports, including Lübeck, Hull and Dundee. While abroad he used to buy kitchenware and clothes to the “ladies” at home. The neighbor, Police Constable Walter Rohde, used to receive a bottle of rhum of Jansson. The bottle contained four liters of Rhum and lasted a long time.
Karl Jansson passed away in 1920. The Widow Rosa started to sublet spaces of the house to other people. Rosa was also a skilled masseur and earned some money providing massage-services. The shoemaker Lundqvist had a workshop in the second chamber of the outhouse a bit in to the 1950s.
Ella took over the house when her mother died. Ellas’s beautiful garden was managed by a relative who was also a gardener in Åbo. In the leafy garden there are rose bushes, peonies, apple- and plumb trees. Ella cultivated rhubarb, parsley and dill.
