[2] When Laila Hirvisaari was three years old, her father Aarne died in the Continuation War between Finland and the Soviet Union, so she had no memories of him.

[5] Hietamies wrote many other novel series, mostly about Karelia and the consequences of the wars of Finland in the 1940s.

On 9 December 2004, Laila Hietamies, along with her three cousins, changed their name back to the maiden name Hirvisaari and from then on, her books were published under that name.

[3] Hirvisaari received many respected Finnish literature awards but never the most prestigious one, the Finlandia Prize.

A movie was based on her novel Hylätyt talot, autiot pihat ("Abandoned houses, empty yards") in 2000.