Árdís - 01.01.1956, Side 48

46
ÁRDÍ S
ton, Man., and later at Frey School in her home district. Her mar-
riage to Isak Johnson, a building contractor, took place in Winnipeg
in 1904. Three years later they moved to Victoria, B.C., and the
following year to Seattle, Wash., U.S.A. In due course they became
American citizens, and made their permanent home in Ballard,
which later became part of Seattle. Of their family of seven
children, five survive; the only daughter died in 1942, the youngest
son gave his life in World War II, and in 1949 Jakobina Johnson lost
her husband. She now makes her home with her son Kari.
This is but a bare outline of the highlights of Mrs. Johnson’s
life. There is nothing here to distinguish it from that of thousands
of her sisters of Icelandic origin. And yet her life is vastly different
from others. Even while her children were young and her days
filled with the many tasks required of a busy mother, her eager
alert mind was busy composing original poems or translating known
Icelandic ones into English. In the quiet of the evening, she would
write down the fruit of her productive mind, only to rewrite it over
and over until it pleased her. True to her Icelandic heritage, she
spent every available moment reading. The library in her city was
a veritable treasure house to her.
As her home duties became less arduous, she devoted more and
more time to writing—poems and stories, translating poems, songs
and plays. Three Icelandic plays have become available to her
English speaking friends because of her efforts. They are Galdra
Loftur (Loftur the Magician), Nyarsnottinn (New Year’s Eve), and
Lenhard Fogeti (Lenhard the Sherriff). As might be expected, the
work from her prolific pen gained attention and began to appear in
various publications noticeably in the American Scandinavian Re-
view, as well as in other west-coast periodicals and in the Icelandic
papers. The original poetry portrays her brightness of soul, the
sunniness of her nature which seeks and always finds the good and
beautiful and minimizes the unpleasant and tragic.
Jakobina Johnson’s talent for translating is singularly note-
worthy. She not only clothes her work in excellent language, but
seems to catch the very spirit of each poem. Her first published
translation was a poem “Vid Verkalok” by Western Canada’s poet
Stephan G. Stephanson.* Her book of poems “Kertaljos” (Candle
From article in “Hlin” by Elsa Gudmundson, Feb. 1947.