The Icelandic connection - 01.12.2020, Síða 37

Vol. 71 #4
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
179
IMAGES AND PHOTOS COURTESY OF SVAVA SIMUNDSSON
Svava’s Choir Boys
by Svava Simundsson
What is in a name? What is, “of no
value”?
I have a set of six small figurine choir
boys.
My first name is Anna. I have never
been called by my first name and always
have gone by my middle name, Svava, and
although I think at many times it would
have been so much easier at times just to
go by my first name, such is not the case.
An elderly woman who lived in Gimli,
who’s name was Anna, gave to me this
set of choir boys. Why I don’t know, but
I always surmised that it was because of
me being her namesake and because I
was a little girl who might treasure these
little figurines. In my family, as children
we were not indulged with very many toys
or treasures of any sort and so I thought
rather fondly of my little choir boys, and
displayed them on a shelf in my room.
I knew Anna because she was a care
giver to my grandfather. My grandfather,
Johann Sasmundsson, had built a house
in Gimli and then sold his house to Anna
and her father Larus Nordal but Johann
continued to board with them well into his
old age and so when I was very young I
got to know Anna a little when we would
come to visit my grandfather.
Anna had always had a great
interest in music. She grew up in Leslie,