Lögberg-Heimskringla - 18.11.1994, Blaðsíða 6

6 * Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 18. nóvember 1994
EINAR’S ANECDOTES

While Oak Point rated
only as a village it
acted sometimes, as if
it were a town. The people
talked themselves into situa-
tions which were too big for
their breeches. Baseball became
the topic and they decided it
was the direction to go. After a
winter of talking and putting on
concert and dance evenings in
the local hall they had accumu-
lated enough funds to outfít a
team and blew the bank role by
ordering bats, balls and other
equipment from Eaton’s. They
lacked funds for uniforms and
identification across the chest
reading “Oak Point”.
After regular evening prac-
tices they decided the time had
come to invite a team, to come
and play a game. They were
careful and contacted the boys.
in St. Laurent. Their reasoning
was based on a false premise
which showed them up as the
clunks they were. St Laurent
has been the focal point of the
descendants from the era of
Louis Riel; it has also been the
home of the Catholic Mission
in that part of the Interlake
area. The Oak Point team was
predominantly Icelanders and
some Anglo-Saxons who were
tolerated simply because there
were not enough of the former
to make up a team.
The first shock came whén
the guest team arrived in uni-
forms with an inscription
qcross the chest which read,
“St. Laurent”. When one of
their boys was reaching second
base there was a yell, “Turf it
Roger.” Our gang of icebergs
were too slow and the result
was that our Metis friends from
St. Laurent whiplashed our
team.
Not to be deterred from
thinking big they invited the
Lundar team and received such
a shellacking the game had to
be stopped well before the ninth
inning. That was the end of Oak
Point baseball and the writer’s
potential baseball career, so
what did he do but buy a plug
of chewing tobacco, and bite
into it as Babe Ruth the world
renowned ball player was
known for, only to become vio-
lently sick and end his career
before it started.
Recreation
When our people arrived
from Iceland, they invariably
made Winnipeg the end of their
journey and found a haven
Where the Heck is Sayreville?
by Nelson Gerrard, INL historian
Sayreville, New Jersey —
not a name most people
would associate with
Icelandic settlement — but
during the late 1880’s the
home of numerous Icelandic
families. Many of these
Icelanders moved on after a
few years, west to Duluth,
North Dakota, or Manitoba
where land was available for
homesteading, and today
descendants of the Sayreville
Icelanders are scattered across
North America.
It was by coincidence that I
found myself staying in the city
of New Brunswick, New
Jersey, this August while on a
short trip to New York which
is just a few miles away, across
the New Jersey-New York bor-
der. A quick scan of the local
map revealed the name
“Sayreville” immediately east
of New Brunswick, and recall-
ing research I had once done
for Julius Stevenson of
Toronto, I recognized that this
was the same Sayreville which
had once been home to a large
group of Icelanders.
Sayreville, just south across
Raritan Bay from New York
MESSUBOÐ
Fyrsta Lúterska
Kirkja
Pastor Ingthor I. Isfeld
1030 a.m. The Service
followed by Sunday School
& Coffee hour.
First Lutheran Church
580 Victor St.,
Winnipeg, MB
R3G 1R2 Ph. 772-7444
Docks and Brick Yard at Sayreville, 1890
York and rapid growth in
recent years, Sayreville still has
a small town look to it. In the
old section of town, numerous
brick buildings recall the for-
mer importance of the brick
industry — once the largest
source of employment here —
and one of these buildings
housed the local historical
society and museum, small but
well worth the visit. The two
ladies in attendance were excit-
ed to receive visitors
from so far away, but
neither had ever heard
of Icelanders in Sayre-
ville, and none of the
items displayed in the
museum gave any evi-
dence of their pres-
ence. A local war
memorial, however,
did include names
which would seem to
have been Icelandic.
After returning to
Manitoba, I retrieved
copies of the Sayreville letters I
had translated for Julius
Stevenson (whose father was
born in Sayreville) and
reviewed them with my impres-
sions of the visit still fresh.
Copies of these letters, together
with a roster of Icelanders
known to have lived at
Sayreville around 1896, were
sent to the Sayreville Historical
Society with the request that
any information which might
come to light about descen-
dants of the Sayreville
Icelanders be sent in retum.
As a result of this visit to
Sayreville, a booklet on the
Sayreville Icelanders is being
compiled — including both the
Sayreville letters and a list of all
known Icelanders who lived
there, along with any photos
which can be located. Anyone
who has family connections
with Sayreville, knows more
about this chapter of our histo-
ry, or has photos relating to the
Sayreville Icelanders, is asked
to contact the INL historian,
Nelson Gerrard, at Box 925,
Arborg, Manitoba ROC 0A0 or
phone 1-204-378-2758.
City, first became home
to Icelandic imTnigrants
in August of 1887, when
shortly after disembark-
ing at Castle Gardens on
the tip of Manhattan,
they were sent here to
work in Sayreville’s
bustling brick industry.
Without means to travel
further or to purchase
land, virtually all the
men worked in the clay
pits and at the Sayre & Fisher
Brickworks, while the women
and youngsters found employ-
ment in the garment industry,
box factories, and laundiy work
at nearby Washington (now
South River, New Jersey). Pay
ranged from $1 to $1.25 per
day, a decent wage, but working
conditions were difficult and
unhealthy and.far different from
any work these Icelanders had
been accustomed to in their
homeland.
A series of letters written
from Sayreville by Halldór
Bjömsson (Skagfjörd) between
1888 and 1895 reveal a surpris-
ing range of facts about these
early Icelandic industrial work-
ers and their stay at Sayreville.
At first, most planned to remain
at Sayreville only a short time,
until they accumulated enough
money to move west and claim
homesteads, and it seems that
eventually most did follow this-
course, though not until after
several years in some cases. A
few returned to Iceland or
moved to New York, and a con-
siderable number moved north
across the Raritan River to near-
Workers at clay pits, 1890
by Perth Amboy, where they
worked at boat building. The
Sayreville Icelanders formed a
temperance society, “Island”,
shortly after their arrival, and
they participated fully in local
school and church organiza-
tions. In 1889, six Icelandic
couples were married at
Sayreville, and despite steady
departures, there were new
arrivals as well. By 1895 it was
reported that some Icelanders
had bought homes, while three
had bought land and became
farmers.
Halldór Bjömsson Skagfjörd,
author of the Sayreville letters,
apparently moved to Winnipeg
in 1893, but he and his wife
returned to Sayreville in the
spring of 1895 with little positive
to say about their sojourn in
Manitoba. At last report, in
1902, “All those few Icelanders
who live here at Sayreville are
doing rather well and have ade-
quate employment here in the
town.”
A short trip to Sayreville on
Sunday before catching the
plane home revealed that
despite its proximity to New
with, rela-
tives, friends
or simply
with other
I celanders
they had
never met
before. The
hosts gave
them shelter
and food out
of compassion and helped
them to find jobs whenever
possible. This friendship
became lifelong and traces of
these bonds can be found to
this day by the present desc-
endants of these people a
whole century later. As with
humans down through the cen-
turies, ties cemented themselves
into lifelong bonds and recre-
ational gatherings became
events that brought them
together to reinforce contacts
and strengthen goodwill by
showing concern for each
other.
These gatherings could be
church services held in school
houses or even homes. The
Icelandic clergymen held the
services in the language of our
people.
Concerts were quite popu-
lar, very often held in a local
school house and then later in
local halls in the outlying dis-
tricts as well as town halls in
villages and towns. The con-
certs were sometimes built
around an invited guest orator
or soloist, or violinist and
pianist and rounded out by
local talents such as poets, and
guest speakers. The first part of
the evening would be rounded
out by local poets reciting an
original poem in a humorous
vein frequently directed at indi-
viduals in the area.
Field days or picnics during
the summer months were pop-
ular and well attended with a
bang-up dance during the
evening hour lasting in some
instances until daylight.
These were wonderful days
of meeting and spending a day,
evening or the night at a dance
eyeing the fair sex with matri-
monial intent. Once the fair sex
individual had been found, the
guarded action by the future
spouse made it next to impossi-
ble to dance with a committed
fem.
When the Model-T Ford
Touring Car appeared on the
scene, things took on a differ-
ent hue. A team of drivers and
buggy became a useless means
of transportation in the marital
sphere, and automobiles
became the in-thing, especially
if it was a new model, with a
foot pedal accelerator opposed
to a steering wheel gás lever.
Gas was expensive at 20
cents per Imperial gallon, with
only twenty miles per gallon
travelling distance.
It was fun, it was pleasant, it
was economical and it brought
you a wife providing you
behaved. It was happy matri-
monial hunting.
By Elnar
Arnason