The Icelandic Canadian - 01.02.2007, Side 32

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 60 #4
to her familial relations that would have
been a more ‘typical’ designation for a
woman at that time. Moreover, we learn
that Goodman was not a “neighbour mid-
wife” who learned her skills on the job but
that she had trained at the Women’s
Academy in Reykjavik and practised as a
midwife until she emigrated to Canada.
That Goodman was an outstanding mem-
ber of her community and performed an
invaluable service to women on both sides
of the Atlantic is evidenced by the last two
sentences that attest to the quality of
Gudrun Goodman’s character and provide
the justification for her inclusion in the
Almanak. What is most striking about this
obituary is that it does not mention the
story of the birth of Gudbjorg Eyolfson
that Walter Lindal singled out thirty years
later. From his vantage point and from
mine, the death of Gudbjorg’s mother was
a calamity and Goodman’s saving the baby
under very difficult conditions was heroic.
From the point of view, though, of those
living at the turn of the twentieth century,
the death of an infant or mother would
have been regarded as a sad but all too
commonplace event.41
The obituary also reveals an important
link between place and identity that docu-
ments the unique experiences of an immi-
grant. Since travelling was a major and
often traumatic undertaking well into the
twentieth century, points of departure and
arrival mark significant moments in an
immigrant’s life. They represent separa-
tion from one’s family of origin, communi-
ty, culture, and language while simultane-
ously holding out the promise of a new
beginning, and hope for the future.
Underlying the journey narrative is a tale
of hardship and loss but this is set against
the unspoken yet omnipresent narrative of
the pioneer’s quest for a new life—the
promised land—which Canada appeared to
offer.
Lineage also figures prominently in the
obituary at least for the period when
Goodman lived in Iceland. For the first
thirty-one years of her life, Gudrun
Goodman was defined by her primary rela-
tionships first to her parents and then to
her husband, as well as by her training
work as a midwife. After she emigrated,
lineage disappears from the obituary, and
Gudrun Goodman emerges as an
autonomous woman who is not defined by
familial ties but by place and property rela-
tions. On first reading, these ‘facts’ were
not obvious to me. I had laboured under
the erroneous beliefs that women had not
homesteaded by themselves, and that the
Crown would not have awarded land to a
single woman. Clearly, I was wrong on
both accounts. Having this knowledge,
however, also changed my perception of
Goodman. She seemed in some ways even
more remarkable in my eyes than when I
first encountered her story since she would
have faced all of the challenges of the first
wave of settlers by herself. (Imagine living
in a sod house in thirty below Celsius
weather and you’ll get my drift). Yet
clearly these ‘facts’ were not remarkable to
Pharmacists:
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642-5504
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