The Icelandic connection - 01.03.2018, Blaðsíða 18

16
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
Vol. 70 #1
Minn Kainn
August, 2017
by Bodvar Gudmundsson
When I was first asked to speak at a
symposium in Akureyri on the 26th
of August 2017 about Kainn (declines like
Trahan), the topic was to be how he was seen
in letters and writings from Icelandic settlers
in North America. I was a bit dismayed. In
those numerous letters from North America
that I reviewed and prepared for printing,
some thousand in number, there was not
a single letter from Kainn. There could be
several reasons for this. Kainn was a letter
writer, but those letters that I researched
were all in correspondence with other
Icelandic-North Americans. In addition,
all his siblings emigrated to North America,
except one, Rosa Torvaldsson, who is
recorded as residing in Akureyri in 1945.
Perhaps someone in Akureyri knows more
about her life than I do, and perhaps some
letters still lay undiscovered in the keeping
of one of her relatives.
When Kainn’s mother died, he was 14
years old and he went to live with his mother’s
brother David Kristjansson at Jodisarstadir
in Ongulstadahreppur, and stayed with him
for four years, but he is listed as a hired hand
Bodvar Gudmundsson
PHOTO COURTESY OF KRISTlN JOHANNSD0TTIR