The Icelandic connection - 01.03.2018, Side 41

Vol. 70 #1
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
39
the community nearby. My brother-in-
law had been chosen for president very
early but Olafur Gudmundson who had
been very much in the limelight when
the congregation came into being was
the representative to the Lutheran Synod
once or maybe oftener.
One thing struck me as being very
funny happened during service one
Sunday morning. A visiting couple that
were staying or living in Grafton were
there. This man had been known to
be a great singer. He was asked to lead
the singing as there were no musical
instruments. He very graciously accepted
and when the minister read the hymn. He
began singing in too high a key so when in
each of the four or five verses he reached
for the high notes by opening is mouth
wide and stretched his neck all while
fanning himself with the hymn book. He
even stood on his toes and managed to
make a very high-sounding voice. I got
reprimanded for smiling while this went
on or maybe for a subdued giggle.
Drought hit for several years. The first
year, my sister Thorunn and Oli Lee sold
their big farm and moved to Washington
Territory. He took with him his hired
men, two or three, furniture and even
the dog. His cousin Peter Lee went too.
The next years of drought, Steve sold his
farm as well as most of the other Cashel
Icelanders. There was such a shortage of
water. Steve had put up his farm for sale
in the spring and then proceeded to plant
his field with grain. No rain had fallen so
things did not look good. Early in June
just a week after he finished seeding a
nice rain shower came and everything
began to show a little green. Just then,
someone who was interested in the farm
came out to see it and found it looking
good, so he bought it. No more rain came
that summer so the new owner plowed all
the fields under before the summer was
over. The trouble on those farms was and
is still, I suppose, that there is so much
salt in the earth that it was not possible
to dig a well deep enough to get unsalted
drinking water for either people or cattle.
It all had to be brought in and Park River
was then the nearest place to us and it was
about two miles away.
Saturday morning, July 13th, 1889
we boarded the train for Winnipeg. Steve
and Joa, dad and mother, Helga and I.
We waited on the platform at Cashel for
the train. I was very curious and really
frightened. I had seen the train approach
and stop at the station before but now I
was going to board this black monster. I
was both curious and frightened. Those
sensations gripped me when I saw it
coming at the curve a little to the west of
town. I was so petrified that Steve had to
hoist me up onto the step. That was the
beginning of one day that I will never
forget. It was the beginning of a life away
from our farm and of a brand new life in
a strange city.
(The Halldora Bjarnason handwritten
manuscripts are held in Gimli Manitoba's
New Iceland Heritage Museum artifacts
and archives collection and are reproduced
here courtesy of the Museum.)
Rev. stefamjovuxzzoin
GIMLI UNITARIAN CHURCH
9 Rowand Avenue
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3J 2N4
Telephone: (204) 889-2635
Email: smjonasson@shaw.ca