The Icelandic Canadian - 01.05.2008, Side 29

Vol. 61 #2
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
I 19
with the Manitoba suffragists- a belief in
temperance. But her views on divorce,
pacifism, and the need for women to be in
all aspects of public life were generally
more outspoken than theirs (p. 26).
She became the first president of the
Icelandic Women’s Suffrage Society of
Winnipeg, called Tilraum (translates as
Endeavor), which she founded in Winnipeg
in 1908 (Johnson, 1994, p. 124; Prentice et
al., 1996, p. 205).
Freyja ceased publication in 1910,
when Sigfus “put a hold on all mail
addressed to the journal and refused his
wife access to the printing press” (Wolf,
1996, p. 23), which he moved to Winnipeg
from Selkirk. That same year, she divorced
Sigfus. Kinnear (1998) writes that divorce
in Manitoba was always less than 1% up
until 1971, so it appears that Benedictsson
made a bold and perhaps courageous step,
in seeking a divorce (p. 17). Also, in 1910 a
marriage could only be dissolved through
an Act of Parliament and usually took a
long time, was a complicated process,
required proof- usually of adultery, and
was costly at about $500 (Kinnear, 1998, p.
63). In 1912, with failing eyesight, she left
Manitoba with her three children (son
-Ingi, daughter- Helen, and a third child-
name and gender unknown) to live first in
Seattle and next in Blaine, Washington.
Benedictsson died December 13, 1956, at
the home of her daughter in Anacortes,
Washington (Wolf, 1996, p. 73). The front
page of the Icelandic newspaper,
Heimskringla, published in Winnipeg on
December 19, 1956, contained her death
announcement. Translated from Icelandic
by Lorna Tergesen on March 5, 2003, in
Gimli, Manitoba, it said: Important
Woman Dies Reported by Heimskringla
from the West Coast last week that
Benedictsson has passed away on
December 13. She was nearly 91 years of
age. She had lived with her son-in-law for
the last 2 or 3 years, Mr. & Mrs. Dalsted in
Anacortes, California. She had been in fail-
ing health and was hospitalized.
She is numbered among the important
Icelandic Canadian Women. She was the
editor of Freyja for 12 years. She was of the
Hunavatnssysla (this is a district in Iceland)
area. Her husband Sigfus died several years
ago. Two of her children are living, Mrs.
Helen Dalsted and one son, Ingi. She was
Unitarian; her memory will certainly not
be forgotten, (p. 1).
Benedictsson utilized her writing to
become one of Manitoba’s foremost pro-
ponents and visionaries of women’s suf-
frage and social change. Her lectures and
her writings may have contributed to other
women writing in the province. Wolf
(1996) speculated:
“It may well have been the pioneer
experience, forcing many women to rede-
fine their feminine role within the family
unit and within society around them, that
in certain instances gave women a sense of
greater personal freedom from constricting
societal rules and that, by extension, gave
them the confidence to write and prompt-
ed literary productivity (p.14).”
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