Gripla - 2019, Side 20

GRIPLA20
ready bore the name Flugumýri “Fly Mire.”46 Whether the abundance of
local insect life inspired the name or the original settlers saw a parallel with
Flugumýri in Iceland is unknown. Before Albert’s arrival, it had been occu-
pied by Jónas Eyvindsson Doll (1828–1892) and his second wife, Guðrún
Sveinbjarnardóttir (1852–1923), who immigrated to Canada in 1889 with
their son Kristinn Frímann (1881–1953) but had not filed the paperwork
for the land at the time of Jónas’s death.
On July 12, 1894, Albert and Guðrún’s son Guðbert Bergsveinn
was born. The couple are registered as married on the official record of
Guðbert’s birth but likely did not formalize their relationship.47 The
boy’s first name is a symbolic joining of his parents’ names (Guðrún and
Albert) and a reminder of his absent half-brother Guðbergur Jónasson
(1884–1904), Guðrún’s second son, who had remained in Iceland with a
foster family but immigrated to Manitoba at the age of sixteen. Albert and
Guðrún also fostered a young boy, Þorsteinn (Steini or Thorsti) Eiríksson,
born in February 1906.48
Tragically, Guðbergur and Guðbert both died as young men. Guðbergur
drowned in an accident on Lake Winnipeg in December 1904. Guðbert
died of tuberculosis at age 17 in February 1911.49 Albert Jóhannesson
passed away a decade later on May 26, 1921. Guðrún Sveinbjarnardóttir
remained at Flugumýri with her eldest son, Kristinn, who inherited the
farm. Kristinn never married and had no children.50
Þorleifur Jackson’s biography makes no mention of Albert’s family life
on Hecla. His unwillingness to acknowledge Albert’s roles as partner, par-
ent, step-parent and foster-parent reflects the unwritten rules of pioneer
history-writing in the early 1900s. It would be easy to conclude on the
basis of this biography that he was an isolated hermit, and something of
an eccentric lone wolf. The work of later historians, such as Gerrard and
46 Gerrard, Hecla Island Pioneers and Placenames, 20.
47 In census records, they alternate between farmer and housekeeper (1901 and 1911) and hus-
band and wife (1906 and 1916). The records contain other inconsistencies: Jóhannesson’s
date of birth is recorded as 1850 in 1901 and 1853 in 1911. Canadian census data was accessed
from Library and Archives Canada (available online at http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/
census/Pages/census.aspx).
48 Þorsteinn Eiríksson lived at Flugumýri with Albert and Guðrún as their foster-son in the
1916 census.
49 “Slysfarir,” Lögberg (05.01.1905): 7.
50 Lögberg (14.05.1953): 8.