The Icelandic Canadian - 01.08.2006, Page 18

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 60 #2
regardless of their faith. There had been
enough division of friendships over reli-
gion in this town. It is difficult to hide in a
small town such as Gimli in 1924. My
grandmother who did not speak English
forgot to inform me that Jesus was neither
Icelandic nor a Unitarian. Benny continued
to recount this story well into our 80’s.
One morning I went visiting with my
mother to visit her friend Thora Jonsson.
There sat another visitor with beautiful
dark hair who smiled at me. She reached
out her hand and asked me in Icelandic
‘What is your name?’ I reached out my
hand and I told her. When I asked her what
her name was and she replied ‘Anna
Solmundson’. With that I jerked my hand
out of hers and said ‘Oh, you are the bad
lady’. I had no idea why she was called
‘bad’ but I had heard my friends Ola and
Kardi Solmundson referred to her as ‘bad’.
Kardi told me that every night he hid his
shoes under his bed to make sure his father
did not steal them. None of the women
spoke but my mother stood up and said
that it was time to go. On the way home I
asked why we had not stayed for coffee and
she replied that she remembered she had
chores to do at home.
Years later when I was about twelve,
my friend Ola told me her mother had
divorced her father, the Reverend Mr.
Solmundson the minister of our Unitarian
church as Anna had stolen her father from
their family.
One fall I was returning home from
visiting my Amma Benson. It was almost
dark and there were no streetlights. We
were used to traveling in the dark. A gen-
tleman was emerging from a doorway that
looked like Mr. Thorsteinson, a family
friend. I said good evening and he replied
‘Good Evening’ in a deep voice that I had
heard before. He was Ola’s father. ‘Excuse
me sir; I thought you were Mr.
Thorsteinson. I never would have said
Good Evening to you.” When I was with
Ola and saw him coming, we always
crossed the street to avoid him.
My sisters and I were the mainstays of
the Unitarian choir. Frank Olson played
the organ for choir practices and all services
on Sunday. I couldn’t read Icelandic so I
needed to memorize the verses. Anyone
who has ever sung in a church choir knows
that the choir loft is a wonderful vantage
point to examine the congregation assem-
bled below. However, it didn’t occur to me
that the congregation had an excellent view
of us. One Sunday, during the sermon I
noticed that Ingibjorg Peterson had
brought her granddaughter Carrie to
church. There was no running water in the
town and the toilet facilities for the church
as well as home was an outhouse. Mrs.
Peterson seemed not to be aware that
Carrie needed to go to the bathroom as she
continued to squirm in the pew. Her
Amma finally knew what the child needed
and proceeded to flip up the child’s coat
and dress, undid the trap door to her
underwear while never breaking her gaze
on the minister. Holding all this above her
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