The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.2000, Qupperneq 20

Vol. 55 #4
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
318
End notes
1. Thomas Hermann Johnson was born in HedinshofSa, S-Fing on 12 February, 1870 and emi-
grated with his parents Jon Bjornsson and Margret SignSur Bjarnadottir and five brothers and two
sisters in 1879. The family settled first at Lundar, then in Winnipeg (1881) and, finally, in the
Argyle District (1883). Thomas attended the Central Collegiate in Winnipeg, completed his B.A.
degree at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota in 1890 and qualified for the bar in
1900. He was elected to the Winnipeg School Board in 1904 and the Winnipeg Council; in 1907 he
was elected a member of the Manitoba Legislature where he served until 1922. He married Aurora
Frederickson from Gimli in 1898. They had three children: Margaret Ethel who married Thomas E.
H. Jolley from Hartford, Conn., U.S.A., Elswood Brandur who married Vera Allen from Saskatoon,
Sask., and Cecil Frederick Johnson who lived in Poquonock, Conn., U.S.A. Thomas was made
King's Counsel in Canada in 1920, a Knight of the Falcon of Iceland in 1925 and of St. Olaf in
Norway in 1926. He died 20 May, 1927. On his death, Manitoba Icelanders sent a bust of him, as a
gift to the Alping in Iceland where it stood in the entrance.
2. From article 1 of this petition: "composed of the Icelandic Lutheran Congregation in the
Province of Manitoba, the North West Territories of Canada, and the States of North Dakota and
Minnesota," p. 334.
3. The petition was recorded in its entirety in the Minutes of the University Council which are
preserved in the University of Manitoba Libraries Archives and Special Collections; pp. 334-336.
4. The fulsome letter occupies well over two full foolscap pages in the Minutes - pp.453-455.
It is not clear why there was so much resistance to the original proposal: According to Dr. J. H.
Riddell's Gateways to a life of service - an autobiography of a President of Wesley College, edited
by Rev. George B. King, 1955. Ashdown Collection, University of Winnipeg:
"the Methodists and Roman Catholics joined forces in support of the initiative while the
Presbyterians of Manitoba College and St. John's [Anglican] offered a vigorous opposition.The
Methodists apparently had much to gain from the introduction of the new linguistics course, for they
had recently entered into a working arrangement with the Lutheran Church and had admitted to their
staff, on the appointment of the Synod, the Reverend F. J. Bergman, a Christian minister of excep-
tionally fine scholarship. Such an arrangement brought into Wesley College a splendid group of
very brilliant Icelandic students, whose industry and ability made them the winners of numerous
scholarships. Among these were such distinguished names as the Thorvaldson Bros., Guttormor
Guttormoson [sic], and Skuli Johnson. After a heated debate, the proposition was endorsed by the
Council and Icelandic became a recognized part of the University programme of studies. The deci-
sion had in it a significance much wider than the addition of a linguistics course in the curriculum.
(Emphasis added.)
No further explanation is provided of this last pregnant sentence.
By agreement, the Synod was to pay two-thirds of the salary and the College one-third, but in
1910 the Synod's contribution fell to $600 and ceased in 1913.
On the other hand, part of the reason for the opposition at the Council may lie in the social sta-
tus in the city of Icelandic-Canadians at the time as reflected in the poignant recollections of Mrs.
Haldor Thorolfson reported in Logberg, 28 April, 1949. She was the second child of Mr. and Mrs.
Frederick Frederickson (after her brother, Frank Walter Frederickson) and the first girl of Icelandic
parentage to be born (in 1879) in Winnipeg. The family stayed in the city, where her father was a
carpenter, when many of the early Icelandic settlers went to Gimli. She remembers well the dis-
crimination practised against the group. Houses up for rent or sale would carry the sign "No
Icelanders Need Apply."
5. University Council Minutes, pp. 458-459.
6. The fore-runner of, successively, the United Colleges (the result of the amalgamation of the
Methodist Wesley and Presbyterian Manitoba Colleges as a consequence of the union of those
churches), then United College and now, the University of Winnipeg - all on the current Portage
Avenue site.