Lögberg-Heimskringla - 16.04.1999, Blaðsíða 1

Inside this week:

HeimsKringia
The lcelandic Weekly
Lögberg Stofnaö 14. januar 1888 Heimskringla Stofnaö 9. september 1886
Book review: Night Train 3
Saga of Hope 4
The lcelanders of Kinmount 5
Memoirs of Guðmundur Jónsson
from Húsey 6
The Saga of Guðríður
Þorbjarnardóttir 7
Calendar of Events 8
113. Argangur “The oldest ethnic periodical still publishing in Canada” Föstudagur 16. apríl 1999 Númer 13
113thyear Publications Mail registration no. 08000 Friday 16 April 1999 Number13
Director of Care retires
President of Betel Home, Mr. Don Bjornson, congratulates Mrs. Dorothy Amason on her
retirement.
Roger Newman
With permission
After three decades on the job,
Dorothy Amason felt it was
time to move on.
That prompted Amason to retire
recently from her post as Director of
Care at the Betel home in Gimli.
She started as a casual nurse at
Betel in 1968 and was a part time care-
giver to the home’s elderly residents
while her two young daughters were in
their formative years. She became a
full-time Betel employee in 1980, was
promoted to head nurse in 1988, and to
Director of Care in 1995.
For the four years prior to her
retirement, she was a key member of
Betel’s management team, scheduling
and supervising the work of the more
than fifty nurses and health care aides
on the home’s staff. Now she is free of
those challenging responsibilities,
although many happy and satisfying
memories remain with her.
“I miss my job to a degree,” she
admits. “I loved it at Betel because the
stafif are unique dedicated people. There
is not a lot of turnover and many
employees stay for very long periods.”
Her high regard for both Betel stafií
and residents is reciprocated. “Dorothy
exemplified Betel’s strength which is
the people who work here,” says
Brenna Raemer, executive director of
the Betel homes in Gimli and Selkirk.
“We will miss her qualities of dedica-
tion, loyalty, and leadership. She was a
strong but quiet influence on the nurs-
ing stafif and the welfare of the residents
was always her main concern.”
Amason carne to Gimlí and Betel
after bouncing back and forth between
Manitoba and Saskatchewan in her
childhood and young adult years.
Born in Spring Valley in central
Saskatchewan, she was raised on a farm
at Minnetonas, MB, near Swan River,
but returned to Saskatchewan to attend
high school at Kerobert. After that, she
graduated as a registered nurse from
Winnipeg’s Grace Hospital and put her
three years of training to work at the
Swan River Hospital.
It was in Swan River that she met
Gilbert Sigurdson, a young Manitoba
govemment agricultural representative
who hailed from Gimli. “We were mar-
ried in 1961 and moved to Gimli in
1965 when Gilbert came horne to work
with his brother Ray on the family farm
at Minerva,” recalls Amason, whose
Danish ancestry almost qualifies her as
an Icelander.
Not too long after her arrival in
Gimli, she began her long association
with Betel. She has seen a big change in
the age of residents over the years, as
the development of provincial home
care has enabled people to stay longer
in their homes before they are ready for
a facility offering nursing care.
“When I first joined the Betel stafif,
most of the residents were totally inde-
pendent,” she says. “Now, and particu-
larly in the last ten years, they tend to be
older and in need of more care, with the
result that the stafif has been increased
accordingly.”
She said it is common for several
centenarians to be in residence simulta-
neously at the Gimli Betel, a phenome-
non that may have something to do with
the longevity of Icelanders. The record
was set by Runa Amason who lived to
be 109 and passed away just last year.
“I met many special people among
the residents,” said Amason. “I was
always sad when familiar faces passed
away, but it was tempered by the
knowledge that they had led long and
frequently interesting lives.”
Amason said it was an exciting
time in May, 1990 when Manitoba
Lieutenant Govemor George Johnson
ofificially opened the modem new Betel
personal care home on Gimli’s lake-
front. “The new building provided
Please see Director on page 2
ICELANDIC NEWS
Judith Ingólfsson receives
Stradivarius
VIOLINIST JUDITH INGÓLFSSON,
recently received a three hundred-
year-old Stradivarius violin to use for
the next four years. The violin was ear-
lier owned by the well-known violinist
Josef Gingold.
Last September Judith Ingólfsson
won the International Violin competi-
tion in Indianapolis. At that time she
was awarded with $30,000, a recording
contract, a concert at Camegie Hall,
New York in the year 2000, and thirty
concerts to be held in the U.S.A. and
Europe. On April 15th Ms. Ingólfsson
will play Violin Concerto No. 1 by
Sergei Prokofiev at a concert with the
Icelandic Symphony Orchestra at the
University Theatre in Reykjavík.
Free Willy - Ocean Futures
Society
he Free Willy Keiko Foundation
will join the Institute of the French
scientist Jean-Michel Cousteau. Jean-
Michel is the son of the well-known
oceanographer Jacques Cousteau. The
new coalition will be called Ocean
Futures Society and it will focus on
supplying information, research, and
education on protection of the ocean.
Cousteau will be president of the
Society.
Hallur Hallsson, media representa-
tive for the Free Willy Keiko
Foundation said that the Cousteau
Institute is not large, but that Cousteau
is very well-known and respected in
the U.S.A. He made the documentary
on Keiko’s arrival to the Westman
Islands. He has a seat on the Board of
the Free Willy Keiko Foundation, and
the Chairman of the Board is the
American millionaire Craig McCaw.
Hallur said that Keiko’s impor-
tance is not being diminished by this
lcelandic News continues on page 2