The Icelandic Canadian - 01.04.2006, Qupperneq 15

Vol. 60 #1
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
13
Building, which is very appropriate. Upon
her return to Canada GuSrun wrote her
travelogue and delivered it at the Icelandic
Canadian Club.
GuSrun confides in her brother.
GuSrun and Valtyr's correspondence
continued. She confided in her brother that
she knew a young man, by the name of
Joseph B. Skaptason, and asked him
whether he knew anything about him.
Valtyr answered right away and said that of
course he is familiar with his people
although he did not know Joseph himself.
Joseph's forefather, of course, attended the
famous “National Meeting at the Latin
School in 1851” and his people were well
known and respected. However, Valtyr
wanted to give her some advice and said
that she need not take the first offer she got,
there are other fish in the sea and they may
also be in Iceland or Copenhagen. He indi-
cated that a sister of a parliamentarian and
university professor could have many
opportunities. It is not difficult to read
between the lines that he was very interest-
ed in bringing his sister closer to himself.
She is his only relative who could possible
move closer to him. But GuSrun does not
let her brother influence her decision. She
married Joseph B. Skaptason in 1901. He
became prominent in the Icelandic com-
munity in Winnipeg and filled positions of
responsibility in the service of the
Manitoba and the Federal Government,
first in the service of the Provincial
Secretary of the Manitoba Government,
then as Chief Inspector of Fisheries for
Manitoba. Theirs was a very happy mar-
riage.
GuSrun's life story in her own words:
How did GuSrun spend her life after
her marrige to Joseph B.Skaftason. She her-
self wrote a short description of her life, so
that is why we can let GuSrun describe her
life in her own words:
"Of public affairs that I have been
involved in the first and most important is
the temperance movement. I was made a
life time member of the Hekla chapter in
the Good Templar organization. I was
made the custody person of the main
branch and I founded three branches for
young people during the time I was in
charge. In 1916 I organized the Jon
Sigurdsson IODE Chapter with Icelandic
women in Winnipeg. I invited to a meeting
at my place, women from three Icelandic
congregations here in Winnipeg. I thought
that we women could not be idle while our
men were fighting against the imperialism
by the German authorities. Now the chap-
ter is 35 years old and has done much for
our social life here. It has added coopera-
tion and compassion among Icelanders.
When we moved to Selkirk I became a life
time member of their organization. The
greatest accomplishment of the club was
the publication of Minningarrit Islenzkra
Hermanna. It cost a lot of money, 10,000
dollars. Because our chapter had sent
parcels and had corresponded with the sol-
diers, we could gather names and informa-
tion for the book.
Icelandic soldiers in England during the
First World War.
I was one year in England during the
war. I tried together with Joseph to do as
much as possible for the Icelandic soldiers.
Most memorable is the celebration of
Christmas when we had 40 for dinner. It
was very enjoyable to come together,
speeches, poetry made on the spot and
singing all night and lots to eat and drink. I
was regent of the chapter for 17 years, have
always made the welfare of the chapter
being my main goal, that is to strengthen
and assist our fellow beings and improve
education. I was the president for three
years of the Unitarian Congregation in
Winnipeg, also the first president and for
many years with the charitable committee
of the congregation.
I was vice president and on the execu-
tive committee of the church ladies club for
many years. I was made a life member of
the General Alliance in Boston at the time
of my 70th birthday, as shown in Brautin
1948, published by our church club.
The family.
You can see from this that I have been
industrious, as I have also written many