Lögberg-Heimskringla - 09.12.1994, Blaðsíða 1

Inside this week
Heimskringla
The lcelandic Weekly
Lögberg Stofnaö 14. janúar 1888 Heimskringla Stofnaö 9. september 1886
Letters to the Editor.......................2
Christmas Celebrations in Florida............3
Seattle's lcelandic Heritage Day.............4
Grímkell's Story, eleventh installment.......5
Brúin INL, Selkirk, awards bursaries.........6
Children's Corner............................7
Letters to Amma...........,.................7
108. Árgangur Föstudagur 9. desember 1994
108th Year Publications Mail Registration No. 1667 Friday, 9 December 1994
Númer 43
Number 43
lcelandic
News
The tceíand Horse
gains popuiaríty:
■ Thousands of foreign visitors
come to lceland every year to
enjoy the lceland Horse in its own
home land, go horse riding and
enjoy the beautiful and magnifi-
cent lcelandic nature. The lceland
Horse has therefore brought peo-
ple of various ethnic backgroud
to lceland and interest in this
strong and versatile horse has
increased in later years. It is
strengthening ties between
lceland and many countries. Ten
young people varying in age from
nine to fifteen years vísited
lceland last fall and stayed with
Meike Will and Sigmundur
Jóhannesson at Syðra Langholt in
Árnessýsla ‘who run a farm guest
house and riding school. The
young people are students in a
riding school in the town of
Meitse, close to Hanover, Ger-
many. They all own an lceland
Horse. The young people were
very happy with the stay even
though the weather wás getting
cool. They were all determined to
come back and become better
acquainted with the horse and to
travel in lceland.
Icelanders
are partners:
■ lcelanders have become part-
ners in the new Airways "Emerald
European, established in Belfast,
Northern Ireland. The company
will begin daily flights between
the intemational airport in Belfast
and Luton Airport in England with
a BAC III 500 jet on December
15th. The intention is then to
begin passenger flights between
lceland and England sometime
next year with planes of the same
make. Kristinn Sigtryggson, the
former owner of Arnarflug hf., has
been hired as a manager and he.
is also one of the lcelandic share-
holders along with Aktive hf., and
othr lcelandic companies and
individuals. BAC III are produced
by British Aerospace and have a
104 passenger capacity.
GUNNUR ISFELD
Doris Johnson
an immense
ly imp
nessive woman
George and Doris Johnson on their wedding day.
Boris Blondal and
George Johnson
are not the ldnd
of people who
would let a thing
like a world war come in the
way of their courtship.
George was wooing Doris
when the war broke out. He
joined the navy and became
an officer based in Halifax.
She remained in Winnipeg
doing her own part, as so
many women did at that
time, to help the war effort.
They kept in touch, of
course, by mail when it was
possible, and in the spirit of
wartime they developed their
own secret method for corre-
spondence. “We had a
code,” says Doris Johnson,
as she is now known, and it
was that code that enabled
them to marry in Halifax in
1943. “Everything was cen-
sored in those days, but the
code let him tell me when he
was coming to port and
would have some time off.”
Doris, the daughter of Dr.
Águst Blondal and Guðrun
Stefanssondóttir, was work-
ing in Prince Albert when
she got the message from
George: marry me. She
phoned her parents in
Winnipeg to tell them that
they had to be in Halifax in a
few days for the event. There
was no problem there,
except for the fact that there
were only two decent hotels
in Halifax at the time, and
neither one was about to
rent a room on New Year’s
Eve to a single naval officer
— hotels were still respect-
able places in those days and
young sailors were not the
most desirable of clients over
the holidays.
That problém was solved,
however, when Doris’s
father made the reservations
from Winnipeg. Doris, her
parents and her sister Joann
took a troop train to the
Maritimes, the wedding took
place and a brief honeymoon
followed before George went
overseas.
The wit, the wisdom and
the perseverance that went
into arranging that marriage
have served Doris and
George Johnson well in the
years that followed. Last year
they celebrated their 50th
wedding anniversary. In the
years between, they endured
a lot of hard work, distin-
guished themselves to a
degree almost unprecedented
in the Western Icelandic
community, and experienced
much joy. A great deal of that
joy has come from their six
children: Janis Gudrun, the
eldest serves in the Canadian
Senate for Manitoba; Jennifer
Ann holds a Masters degree
in counselling and educa-
tional psychology. She teach-
es in Victoria, B.C.; Daniel
George has a degree in
Physical Education. He
serves as executive director
of Special Olympics —
Manitoba; Jon Blondal holds
a PhD from London School
of Economics. He is presi-
dent of his own firm —
Govemment Policy Consult-
ants; Joann Margret is
Assistant Professor of Obste-
trics and Gynaecology at the
University of Toronto;
Gillian Kristin has a Master
of Arts degree from McGill
in English. Currently she is
pursuing further studies at
the University of California
— Irvine. It is, in fact, almost
a fairy tale family, so well
and so happily has it suc-
ceeded.
George Johnson, the
patriarch, is, of course, the
best known member of the
family — a beloved general
practitioner of medicine in
Gimli, a former minister of
education in the Manitoba
government of Duff Roblin,
lieutenant governor of
Manitoba, recipient of the
government of Iceland’s
highest award, The Order of
the Falcon and, most recent-
ly, awarded the honor of
Officer of the Order of
Canada.
But beside every great
man, as they say, there is a
woman. In this case that
woman is Doris Johnson,
and although she has not
received the awards and
recognition that her husband
has, she shares in them. One
wonders, in fact, if he could
have accomplished so much
if she had not been there
with him.
Doris today is an im-
mensely impressive woman.
As you can see from the wed-
ding picture that appears on
this page, she was a very
beautiful young woman, but
she was also a young woman
with brains and ambition.
She trained and qualified
arid worked as a dietitian,
but when the war ended she
assumed the roles of wife,
mother, mentor and matri-
arch to her family. She has
had, in effect, as many
careers as her husband.
Asked which one she
enjoyed the most, she
replied: “That’s a difficult
question to answer. I think
that the most important thing
that I have done is being a
mother, always being there
when my children needed
me. My great.est satisfaction
is seeing them happy and
healthy and doing well in
their lives.”
It is a long road from
being the wife of a country
doctor, where the office was
in the home and the living
Cont'd p. 3