Lögberg-Heimskringla - 12.02.1970, Blaðsíða 2

LÖGBERG-HEIMSKRINGLA, FIMMTUDAGINN 12. FEBRÚAR 1970
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MINNING:
i
Anna Josephson
1887— 1969
Af eilífðar ljósi bjarma ber,
sem brautina þungu greiðir.
Vort líf, sem svo stutt og stopult er,
það stefnir á æðri leiðir.
Og upphimin fegri en augað sér
mót öllum oss faðminn breiðir. —E. B.
Anna var fædd 15. ágúst
1887 á Islandi. Foreldrar
hennar voru hjónin Erlindur
Erlindsson og Olína Theodora
Guðmundsdóttir. Hún fluttist
með foreldrum sínum til Can-
ada árið 1889. Eftir ársdvöl
í Winnipeg flutti fjölskyldan
til Nýja íslands og settist að
í Geysirbyggð. Heimilið þeirra
var nefnt Háland. Þar dvaldi
Anna þar til hún giftist, að
undanteknum nokkrum árum
er hún átti heima hjá Oddi
Akranes og konu hans að
Hnausa í Nýja íslandi.
Þann 17. desember 1908
giftist hún Jóni Josephssyni. Voru þau hin fyrstu hjón sem
gift voru í kirkju Gimlisafnaðar, sem þá var nýbyggð. Var
hjónavígslan framkvæmd af séra Runólfi Marteinssyni sem
þá var þjónandi prestur á Gimli. Settust ungu hjónin að í
Gimlibæ og dvöldu þar ávallt síðan.
Anna var há vexti, tignarleg á velli og skörungleg í allri
framkomu. Hún var félagslynd og ósérhlífin í starfi. Aðal-
lega lét hún til sín taka í starfi lúterska safnaðarins á Gimli.
Fetaði hún þar í fótspor sinnar mikilhæfu móður. Um hana
var skrifað, „Frú Ólína var sterk trúuð kona er vann með
brennandi áhuga að kirkju- og safnaðarmálum.“
Anna átti sæti í safnaðarnefnd um langt skeið og var
forseti Gimlisafnaðar í 17 ár. Hún var starfandi meðlimur
safnaðar kvenfélagsins Framsókn, og heiðursmeðlimur þess
hin síðari ár. Á tímabili var hún forstöðukona Sunnudaga-
skólans. Hún var skilningsrík og hluttekningarsöm við þá
sem áttu við erfiðleika að stríða hvert heldur það var orsak-
að af veikindum eða fátækt og mun oft hafa rétt þar
hjálparhönd.
Josephson’s heimilið var annálað fyrir myndarskap og
gestrisni. Voru hjónin samtaka í að gera það aðlaðandi og
ánægjulegt. Munu margir eiga hlýjar endurminningar um
veru sína þar — skólakennarar og unglingar á skóla er þar
voru til heimilis um tíma.
Sambúð hjónanna var mjög farsæl, þau tóku innilegan
þátt í hvers annars starfi og kringumstæðum á hinum langa
samverutíma er entist í sextíu og eitt ár. Þeim féll sú mikla
sorg í skaut að missa þrjú böm sín er dóu á unga aldri.
Nokkru'síðar tóku þau að sér þrjú fósturböm og reyndust
þeim sem beztu foreldrar. Önnur fósturdóttir þeirra María
Howardson (síðar Mrs. Art Jorgensen) dó í júlí 1958.
Hin síðari ár, eftir að vanheilsa þjakaði, dvöldu þau á
elliheimilinu Betel á Gimli og hlutu þar hina góðu aðhlynn-
ingu sem sú stofnun er þekkt fýrir. Árin voru orðin mörg
og starfsdagurinn langur. Þar eins og ávalt studdu þau hvert
annað með nákvæmni og skilningi.
i
Eftirlifandi ástvinir, auk eiginmannsins eru: tvö fóstur-
börn, Mrs. Clifford Stevens (Snjólaug) til heimilis á Gimli
og Jón Howardson til heimilis í Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Einnig tvær systur: Ingibjörg Miller í Oregon ríki í Banda-
ríkjunum og Johanna Miller til heimilis í Wasco, California.
Andlát Önnu bar að höndum 30. desember 1969. Jarðar-
förin fór fram 2. janúar 1970. Séra Alfred Sanders fyrrver-
andi prestur Gimli safnaðar þjónaði við útförina.
Hún hvílir í Gimli grafreit.
Friður sé með öllum yður,
öllum sálum veitist friður
aldrað jafn sem aðeins fætt
andað eftir draumlíf sætt.
Allt sem dó frá heimsins hörmum.
Hvili rótt í friðar örmum. — Slgr. Th.
i
Ingibjörg J. Ólafsson.
My Home In lceland
Framhald af bls. 1.
anxious about the Christmaslights. There is no firework
services. One of my oldest
parishioners visited me and,
knowing of my worry, he said
to me over a cup of coffee.
“Don’t worry, my dear prest-
er. We’re going to have á good
Christmas and a full church.”
“How do you maike that
out?” I asked.
“It’s a dream,” he answer-
ed, “A dream I had the other
night, coupled with an old
belief. Just you wait and see.”
The old fellow was right. At
Christmas the. weather was
fair and clear and the New
Year came in like a lamb.
Later I asked him to tell me
his dream.
“Oh, that was about the
Christmas weather, you
mean!” he answered, and fil-
led his nostrils with black
snuff taken from a hollowed
ram’s horn. “I’ll tell how it
was. I dreamt that the church
was covered with blood and
it dripped down the walls and
ran over the churchyard.
“And that means, to us old
men at least, a sign of good
weather.
“Anyhow,” he continued,
“I was expecting a change.
When the weather starts with
such ferocity in the autumn
nights it’s got to breathe,
sometime, ancU it’s . usually
around Christmas that the
lull comes.”
Many others besides this
old man have this insight, and
can recognize signs hidden
from the man less in touch
with the mysteries of nature.
Up here in the Far North old
superstitions die hard, and we
are not far from the days
when belief in sea monsters,
g h o s t s and supematural
beings was common.
But midwinter is not all a
battle with the weather. We
occasionally have the joy of
watching the Northern Lights,
when the frost is great and
m y r i a d s of stars sparkle
brighter than any neon signs.
On such nights hundreds of
lanes of light cut the sky.
Beams, like huge searchlights,
cross the lanes, joining them
up to form letters of the
alphabet in green, orange, red
and silver. Then there is the
sudden pause on the great
stage of twinkling lights with
the reflection on the sea mak-
ing it look like a vast silver
carpet.
After a minute the beams
danee again, forming shapes
of men, of animals, of angels,
with dancing stars and a bril-
liant moon. Then, like the
grand finale at a big circus,
comes the magnificent dis-
play of shooting stars. In all
the beautiful background of
shifting light they shoot to-
wards the sea, exploding high
up in the heavens, in a breath-
taking s h o w of eoloured
display on earth which can
come near in grandeur to the
Northem Lights.
But it’s a fact that through-
out the winter we wait eager-
ly for the spring, the season
of change which will give us
all refreshment and hope and
a time to breathe again; the
time when the snow bunting
sings her song and heralds the
thaw. Then one day we see
the Arctic tem, the harbinger
of spring. The days lengthen
quickly and by May we have
no darkness and the sun be-
gins to shine at midnight. It’s
at this time I always feel a
sense of physical and spiritual
relaxation.
Living on the island of Ice-
land I feel like John on the
isle of Patmos and remember
his words in the Book of
Revelation — “And there
shall be no night there.” On
Whit Sunday we thank Him
in our little church for His
benevolence in giving us life
again, the song of the birds
and the promise of green
grass and sweet hay.
With the winter over I can’t
tell my friends in Scotland of
the many great plays I have
seen and the concerts I have
attended d u r i n g the dark
days. My entertainments have
been my family,. my books
and my radio. And then there
are the animals in the byre
and the sheephouse, who are
always a pleasure.
With thé coming of sum-
mer the infinite beauty of
Iceland is, I’m sure, unsur-
passed in any country. In the
Sagas, and in modern books,
the glories of this season have
been praised by many writ-
ers. But from experience I
know there is more to it tham
the purple hue of the mid-
night sun on the mountains
and a delightful variety of
sub-Arctic flora. It is the peo-
ple. They change like the
atmosþhere.
The women, although beau-
tiful at any season, take on a
fresh bloom which givés them
an extraordinarily exotic ap-
pearance. And the men, too,
look taller and more hand-
some under the perpetual
light.
This is the time for the
children to leave the towns
and be farmed out, in tune
with nature, until the aut-
umn.
The summer gives me many
other delightful experiences.
It is during this time that
many come to visit me. Look-
ing over my guest book of
last summer I see names from
various Embassies in Reykja-
vik, a minister from Scotland,
and a priest from Belfast. I
can read names from Canada
and the United States along
with others from various

parts of Iceland, friends who
had called.
During these visits I do
much armchair travelling to
distant lands, and taste food
and drink from many coun-
tries. The long strain of wint-
er is forgotten over Russian
cavair and a cup of Irish
coffee. I like to recall a com-
ment in my guest book from
one of the MacDougall clan
who visited me and my fam-
ily. It reads — “The sun
always shines at the Tjorn
glebe.” He should know, be-
cause, besides visiting us dur-
ing the time of the midnight
sun, he has also stayed with
us in midwinter.
Unfortunately many parish-
ioners cannot partake in the
variety of the foreign visita-
tions because they do not
understand any language oth-
er than their own. However,
if any of them come to see
me when I have guests from
abroad they will, for a time,
listen to the strange langauge,
smile occasionally, and then
slip away to enter their own
world again.
I know what it means to
wrestle with the Icelandic
language, to fight my way
into the prose and verse of
her ancient and modern writ-
ings and to understand them.
It has taken me time and toil
to learn to speak Icelandic,
preach in it, weep in it and
laugh in it. But to know it
well I have had to know the
soul of the nation, its charac-
ter and aspirations. The aver-
age Icelander is a canny, very
hard-working man who, with
great national pride, wishes
to make his country better
for his children to live in. In
that he has much in common
with the true Scot.
Much of the history of Ice-
land has been closely linked
with Scotland. Only a little
over four hundred miles sepa-
rate the most southerly tip of
the Icelandic coast from the
most northerly point of Scot-
land. From Scotland, Iceland
received Christianity, and by
law became a Christian coun-
try in the year 1000.
Until modern times, agricul-
ture was the main employ-
ment of the people, while
fishing — today the biggest
industry — was only used to
provide extra food for the
farm. Iceland has always been
an island of sheep; the export
of live lamb and yearlings to
various parts of Scotland
lasted until the beginning of
the First World War.
The I c e 1 a n d i c horse, a
sturdy and sure-footed little
beast, which the early settlers
brought with them from Nor-
way, became, too, a valuable
item of export. With the dis-
covery of coal in Scotland and
the opening of pits in the
early 19th century, thousands
of Icelandic horses were shop-
ped to Methil and Leith.