Lögberg-Heimskringla - 26.11.1999, Page 5

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 26. nóvember 1999 • 5
1 Vhat’s happening in...
USA
Ballard attorney states case for Leif Eiriksson Day
Jon Marvin Jonsson, the Consul
General of Iceland, stands below the
Leif Eirikssonn statue at Shilshole Bay
Marina. Photo: Brnce Savadow
Tony Brouner
Ballard News-Tribune
With permission
Columbus Day may be a federal
holiday, but any Scandinavian
deserving of his or her krumkake
can tell you that Leif the Lucky, son of
Erik the Red, set foot on North American
soil nearly five centuries before the
Italian sailing on Spain’s nickel ever got
to this side of the Atlantic.
One guy who can tell you a good deal
more about all of that is Jon Marvin
Jonsson, a Ballard attomey who, for the
past thirty-one years, has served as
Consul General of Iceland. The Ballard
native—he was born in the very building
that houses this newspaper’s office—will,
along with scads of others, be observing
Leif Eiriksson Day come Oct. 9.
It was in the year 1000 that Leif put
ashore in what is now Newfoundland—
Leif called it Vínland—making him and
his cohorts the first Europeans known to
have stumbled upon the New World.
That Leif was bom in Iceland is a
source of pride for the island nation and
its sons and daughters in North America.
That he was of Norwegian descent pro-
vides bragging rights for the Norwegians.
For the rest of us, with the possible
exception of the native peoples, Oct. 9
could supply as good a reason as any to
raise a toast.
For Jonsson, it could be another
opportunity to reflect on his own heritage.
Unlike many then-recent arrivals to
United States, who wanted their children
to become Americanized as soon as pos-
sible and therefore insisted on the speak-
ing of English at home. Jonsson’s folks
spoke their nativé tongue.
“We were not allowed to speak
English in the home,” Jonsson said.
“Because of that, I can speak Icelandic. I
didn’t really learn English until school.
My wife says I’m still screwed-up in
English.”
Not so screwed-up that it kept him
from graduating from law school and
passing the bar exam and hanging out his
shingle. It never stopped him from get-
ting elected to the state house of repre-
sentatives, where he served one term
about forty years ago. He lost his reelec-
tion bid, but that just gave him more time
to be d lawyer.
“It [the state house] can be very time
consuming and inconsistent with a law
practice,” Jonsson said. “I was trying a
lot of cases then, and I had to be gone for
two months.”
And besides, he added, “as a fresh-
inan legislator, I didn’t know what was
going on.”
He had a practice downtown, but his
election changed that.
“I had the notion that if I was going
to be a good representative, I’d better
have an office in the district,” he said.
And in Ballard his office remains,
where it doubles as the Icelandic
Consulate.
“You look after the citizens in your
country,” Jonsson said of his official
duties. “If the citizen is jailed, you see to
it they have legal counsel. If they lose
their passport, you try to get them anoth-
er. In thirty years, I’m pleased to say
they’ve never called me from the city
jail.”
He said about twenty-five Icelanders
attend graduate school at the University
of Washington, a pretty fair representa-
tion considering that the nation has only
around 250,000 citizens. And that’s up
from about 50,000 at the last turn of the
century, he said.
“The Icelandic inale has the longest
life expectancy; it’s attributed to taking a
spoonful of cod-liver oil every day,”
Jonsson said with a grin. “For the last fif-
teen years, I’ve been taking a spoonful of
cod-liver oil every day.”
It apparently has done the trick. He
isn’t a kid anymore, but he gets around
like one. And he keeps himself involved
in some fun stuff, such as his conversa-
tions with the Millennium Commission in
Iceland to get a replica of Leif’s ship to
Seattle in time for the boat show in
January 2001.
He explained that the vessel is
expected to sail from Iceland on June 17,
2000, the nation’s Independence day, and
arrive in New York on Oct. 9, 2000, as
part of that city’s observation of the lucky
one’s day.
Jonsson has done legal work for the
folks who put on the boat show, and he’s
the Icelandic consul and all, so it seemed
a natural íit. The boat would have to be
trucked across the continent, and that
doesn’t come cheap, but he’s working on
it.
Ballard’s observation of Leif
Eiríksson—Leifur Eiríksson, in Icelandic
—Day will be centered at the Nordic
Heritage Museum, where a slide show
and lecture on Icelandic history will be
presented by Adolph Whiting, M.D.
A traditional sinorgasbord and music
and dancing will follow. For more infor-
mation on the day’s events, call 783-
1254.
Iceland
President receives first
copy of Bible
The Bishop oflceland, Karl Sigurbjörnsson, presents the President of Iceland,
Ólafur Ragnar Grúnsson, with the first copy ofthe Festive Edition of the Bible.
Photo: Morgunbladid/Svemr
The first copy of a Festive
Edition of the Bible was presented
to the President of Iceland, Ólafur
Ragnar Grímsson, by representatives
of the publishers, the Icelandic Bible
Society. The Festive Edition was print-
ed in two thousand, numbered copies.
The Bishop of Iceland and President of
the Icelandic Bible Society, Karl
Sigurbjömsson, presented the bible to
the President and said at that occasion
that the publication was in commemo-
ration of thousand years of
Christianity in lceland. The book is
bound in leather and comes in a pro-
tective box. The copy-number is hand-
written on the title page where there is
also space for the owner’s name.
A Celtic cross is engraved on the
cover, which the Bishop said reminded
of those who first stepped ashore in
Iceland. On dust-covers is a picture of
the beginning of Exodus from a inanu-
script from the thirteenth century and
on extra pages is a bookknot and a pic-
ture from Guðbrandur’s Bible. “On the
other hand, what is of greatest impor-
tance here, is what is between the cov-
ers, the good text of the Holy Book,
which is the Book of books and the
word of life,” Bishop Sigurbjömsson
said. He said that prayers for the
President and his people accompanied
the gift.
Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson thanked
for the good gift and said that the Bible
was not only a Holy Book of
Christianity, but that it was also funda
mental to Icelandic culture. The
President said he would use the new
book right away as he was preparing a
speech for a Christianization
Celebration at Stykkishólmur, in case
he needed to quote the Bible he would
be equipped with the latest edition by
his side.
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