Terttu Korpela

Terttu Kyllikki Korpela, 1941–2024

Terttu Kyllikki Korpela (née Miettinen), a loving wife, mother, and grandmother, who emigrated from Finland at 21 without speaking English, died March 21, 2024, in Eugene, Oregon, after living with Alzheimer’s disease for more than ten years. She was 82.

Tepa, as she was known, was the embodiment of the Finnish word Sisu, meaning tenacious, stoically determined, and resilient. With a keen eye of discernment, she kept her chin up and expected the same from those around her. Coming from humble beginnings, she appreciated the good things in life—especially food, music, and well-made clothes—yet remained frugal and practical, hitting the sales, keeping a tidy home, gardening, antiquing, and engaging in domestic crafts such as upholstery and needlepoint.

Born July 26, 1941, in Kymi, Finland, the third of four girls, Tepa knew wartime hardship early on. The story goes that her mother went into labor while evacuating the city via train, which was under enemy fire. Her mother escaped the train and walked ten kilometers through the forest to get to the nearest town, where she was rushed to a hospital. 

Tepa’s father was a bricklayer and played a violin in an orchestra and her mother came from a simple farming family who knew how to make ends meet by keeping a pig and scavenging the forest for berries to make jam.

After high school, Tepa got a job working at a switchboard for a telephone company and was able to save enough money for a plane ticket to the States.

 There she met her future husband, Seppo Korpela, a fellow Finn, and they married on August 14, 1965. They moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Tepa supported Seppo through his graduate studies, while also giving birth to their daughters, Katja in 1968, and Liisa in 1971. The family moved to Columbus, Ohio, where Seppo began a teaching career in the mechanical engineering department at Ohio State University and Tepa enrolled in nursing school at OSU. Upon graduation she worked in the university hospital’s neonatal unit. Later she worked in the intensive care unit in Newark, New Jersey, in intensive care unit at the Doctor’s Hospital in Columbus, and finally as an operating room nurse in Riverside outpatient surgery center.

 Tepa was moved by music and dance and on occasions would find herself waltzing with Seppo. She loved opera performances at the Palace Theater, often meeting her coworkers there with their husbands in tow. She loved entertaining and hosting and was a chairwoman in turn of the International Dining Group of OSU’s women’s club.

 After retirement in late 2011, Tepa and Seppo moved to Eugene to be close to their newly born granddaughter Lilja, and her daughter Liisa and husband Shane. A few years after this move it became clear that she was suffering from dementia. She became softer, almost angelic and joyful wanting to hug everyone in the grocery store.

Through her illness, Tepa stayed at home, where Seppo took good care of her, acquiring cooking and housekeeping skills. He said it was easy because she was so pleasant.

Tepa was preceded in death by her daughter Katja, who died of brain tumor in 2004, after a ten-year struggle, and her three sisters, Irja, Helga, and Kaija.

 Friends and family will miss Tepa’s kindness and generosity, her enthusiasm for life and her Sisu, and delicious Finnish coffee bread Pulla and fruit salad. A celebration of Tepa’s life took place on March 24.