Ilma Adamson recalls the two strict men who shaped her life

ERR reported that 92-year-old dance teacher Ilma Adamson grew up under the authority of two very strict men: her father and folk-dance elder Ullo Toomi, whom she said determined the course of her life. She spoke about her childhood, career and family on Vikerraadio’s programme “Käbi ei kuku…”.

Adamson said she was “a simple farm girl” who spent her early years in Haapsalu. Her father had lost his first wife and married Adamson’s mother in 1933. He was looking for a very hardworking woman to run his household, which also included his three sons from his first marriage. Two of the sons went to Sweden, while one disappeared and another reached the Swedish shore, Adamson said.

Adamson, who has created around 100 dances for mixed, women’s and children’s groups, recalled her father’s belief that people must know how to forgive.

“My father’s word always carried weight in our family,” she said. Once, after an incident, he told her to bring him a switch, saying she would be beaten the following morning. Adamson brought it to him and was so frightened that she could not sleep all night. By morning, however, her father’s heart softened and he did not beat her.

Her father also worried greatly when she began attending dances at Vasalemma Manor. After the Second World War, Russian soldiers came to take girls to dance. When one approached Adamson, she refused to go and ignored him. He threw coins at her, but local boys saw what happened and beat him, she recalled.

“My father was afraid and told my mother, ‘You let the girl go out; one day her apron will be full,’” Adamson said.

She described herself as a proud young woman who walked with her nose in the air and had all the caprices of youth.

A newspaper photograph made Adamson famous across the Soviet Union

Adamson said she had never wanted to become a farmer. She regretted leaving school, but said she had no choice. She completed seven grades at Vasalemma school in 1949, earning a good certificate.

That year brought forced collectivisation on a massive scale, she recalled. Her mother cried as the family’s animals were taken away one after another. Cows, horses, agricultural machinery, mowing machines and hay rakes were all collected, Adamson said.

Teachers were deported, mathematics and physics education suffered, and Adamson failed her exams.

She later read in a newspaper that Balti Manufactory was hiring weavers. She got a job there at the age of 16. After she had worked there for three months, the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda came to see her and published her photograph. Letters then began arriving from across the Soviet Union.

The factory’s chief accountant read the article and offered Adamson a job managing the weavers’ payroll. She also joined the factory’s dance group, led by Irene Kadak. Kadak told her that she danced well and should lead the group herself.

Adamson had already studied dance at school. A friend later took her to Ullo Toomi, whom she described as the man who determined her fate.

“He was my second father,” Adamson said. “He was very strict, but also very fatherly, kind and forgiving. He used to tell us that if you choose a profession and want to pursue dance, remember that you do not make your way with your elbows, but with wisdom and hard work.”

In 1954, Adamson travelled to Moscow with Toomi’s dance group, where she met her future husband. “He noticed me. I had a very good husband; he was charming and intelligent,” she said.