The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2003, Síða 46

88
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 58 #2
It is said she told them she could not work for them if they did not
allow her to eat at their table
Eventually they homesteaded Haga, a quarter section in the Mary
Hill district north of Lundar.
Their youngest son Jon and his twin sister Olaffa, born in 1890,
infants
when they arrived with Sigfus, Sofffa, Gudlaug and Porsteinn
Eirfkka was born the next year
The koftort still like new
carried their things to Haga
and remained there for over eighty years
first in the log house Johann built
and then in the grand two storey wood frame
their youngest son Jon built in 1919
In the 1920s both Johann and Steinunn died
but the koffort still sat at the foot of the bed
in the master bedroom
In 1969 it journeyed to Betel in Gimli
where Jon and his wife Helga, then blind
spent their last two years.
Then the little chest, filled to the brim with pictures
travelled to Regina where Lillian, eldest living daughter of Jon and
Helga
granddaughter of Johann and Steinunn
read the story of emigration, settlement, birth, death, love, land, ani-
mals, friends, relatives
in the pictures spilling out of the box
When Lillian and her husband Hafsteinn Bjarnason moved from the
prairies to White Rock, BC
they took the koffort with them
but their apartment did not have space for the small chest
so they gave it to their youngest daughter Bernice Lindal
who lived in Burnaby, BC