The Icelandic Canadian - 01.08.2009, Qupperneq 33

Vol. 62 #3
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
123
activism.
Although Halldorson occupied a
unique space within the interwar Icelandic
Canadian community as a persuasive and
popular female political figure, her margin-
al position within Icelandic Canadian his-
toriography remains that of the “lady
schoolteacher turned politician.” Focussing
mainly on her long teaching career and
stint as principle of the Icelandic Jon
Bjarnason Academy in Winnipeg, popular
biographies of Halldorson often downplay
her controversial political life in favour of
her personal history, relationship to
Icelandic culture and traditions and her ser-
vice to the community. Such biographies
frequently identify Halldorson as the first
Icelandic baby born in the Lundar district
in Manitoba and the role of traditional cul-
ture in her childhood. These histories also
credit Halldorson with unusual intelligence
including her ability to play music by ear,
as well as her “colourful and eccentric per-
sonality", penchant for watching horse rac-
ing, knitting, crochet, and fast driving.
Beyond her years of school teaching and
one well-publicised motion she introduced
to the assembly in 1937, however, the
details of this lady schoolteacher’s political
career remain untouched.
Allison L. McKinnon’s 1992 article in
The Icelandic Canadian is one of the very
few community oriented biographies of
Halldorson which provides a broad
overview of her election and political
career. Although McKinnon’s work incor-
porated some forgotten details of
Halldorson’s political career, she omits any
reference to her pacifist campaigns as well
as the resistance she faced from her own
party as well as the Icelandic Canadian
community. Instead Halldorson’s story,
writes The Icelandic Canadian editor Carol
Mowat, fit well into popular Icelandic
Canadian consciousness as “a cultural
vignette so familiar to us all: the stoic
Icelandic woman who becomes a teacher,
(whose) career went beyond the one room
schoolhouse to the Jon Bjarnason
Academy and a stint in politics.” In keep-
ing with the traditional emphasis on educa-
tion and literacy which characterizes
Icelandic Canadian culture and historiog-
raphy, one which community members
view as a continuation of the Icelandic saga
tradition, Halldorson's education occupies
an important space within such biogra-
phies. A student of Winnipeg’s Wesley
College from 1905-1910, she studied
German, Icelandic, and Latin while playing
on the college’s hockey team, and was
elected as "Lady Stick" or female student
body head. Following her graduation, she
taught throughout Manitoba and was hired
as a language instructor in 1920 at
Winnipeg's Icelandic Lutheran High
School, The Jon Bjarnason Academy.
(JBA) She became principal in 1926 and
dean of JBA in 1927, leading the academy
through a period of intense financial adver-
sity following the Lutheran Church’s deci-
sion to withdraw the academy's funding.
She also received a medal for her teaching
record from Buckingham Palace on the
occasion of the Royal visit in 1939 and
taught until the age of 70. In her 1946 auto-
biography published in the Icelandic news-
paper Heimskringla, Halldorson wrote
that her decision to enter politics stemmed
from her concern for the young unem-
ployed alumni of JBA.
Boys and girls who had been my
pupils came in to school saying that
they had looked for jobs for weeks
and months. These boys and girls
were clever and their plight aroused
my wonder. I had not been more
clever at their age and yet teaching
jobs had never been lacking to me. I
began to wonder what was going on
and I somehow reached the conclu-
sion that the fault lay with money.
Although Halldorson frequently refers
to the role of her career in her decision to
pursue politics, community histories, such
as Wagons to Wings: History of Lundar
and Districts, 1872-1980, often attribute
Halldorson’s interest in politics to her
father Halldor, an Icelandic fisherman and
migrant turned farmer who had served as
an alderman in Iceland instead. Halldorson
wrote that prior to his death in 1921, her
father's politics occupied a prestigious
place in the family, seldom forcing Salome
to question her own political persuasion.
“My people were strong supporters