The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2004, Qupperneq 37

Vol. 59 #2
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
79
them of his joy in being able to get a few
days of leave.” Thordarson went on to
describe Buster as “an iron man type of
player, a clever stick handler ... a little man
but sturdily built”.
I knew Frank was a member of the
Falcons Athletic Club, and a hockey play-
er. Could Fred Thordarson's “Buster” be
my great-uncle Frank? Fred's daughter,
Shirley McCreedy, is a friend of mine. The
trouble was that no one seemed to know
Buster Thorsteinson's real first name. We
had a bit of luck, though. In 1996, the
“Icelandic Canadian” published a photo-
graph of Buster, and Shirley had a copy.
Now, if we only had a photograph of
Frank for comparison. We searched the
Web but no luck. The government archives
had lots of documents, but no pictures. In
fact, they asked us for one. Frank seemed
to be pretty camera shy.
We checked various war memorial
records. He does not appear on the memo-
rial plaque at First Lutheran Church,
where he was a member. Some of the
details of Thordarson's dedication are con-
sistent with what we know of Frank, but
others are not. There was another
Thorsteinson killed near the end of the
war, in Belgium (i.e. Flanders).
I asked my cousin Leslie Lindberg.
Leslie is the daughter of Frank
Ingimundson, Frank's namesake. I showed
her the magazine article. That's strange, she
said. She found a framed caricature of
Buster Thorsteinson, similar to, but not the
same as the magazine cover, in her father's
papers. Leslie wondered who Buster might
be. Pretty close, but I still wasn't sure.
Then last month (June 2003), at my
Aunt Gwen's 90th birthday, my cousin
Fred Ingimundson arrived with a package
of pictures. Lo and behold, the first item in
the package was a postcard style photo-
graph of Frank Thorsteinson. And guess
what ... Frank is Buster. I don't know
where the nickname came from, but maybe
Thorson's drawing is a clue. Thorson drew
Frank “busting” an opponent.
Genealogical research can be so inter-
esting. At one time, my great-uncle was lit-
tle more than another statistic. I now know
he was so much more. Some time soon, my
son Jim and I will visit his grave in Barlin,
France. We will leave behind a little soil
from Winnipeg's Vimy Ridge Park. We
will honour Amma Vilborg's grief, and that
of the Ingimundson family. We will con-
template what might have been; that little
iron willed man who was the spirit behind
Canada's first Olympic hockey champions.
Frank Thorsteinson is buried in plot
25-2283, Barlin Cemetery. This cemetery is
located near Barlin, between Bethune and
St. Pol in NW France, not far from the
Belgian border.
Pickerel • Salmon • Crab
Shrimp • Goldeye •
Lobster • Hardfiskur
and more!
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