Sigurlaug Thorbergsdóttir Freeman
 1858-1935

  
 

 
  On the 28th day of January this year (1935), at her home near Blaine, Washington, the gentlewoman, Sigurlaug Thorbergsdóttir Freeman died. She was born at Viðivollum in Skagafjorður in Iceland on the 6th of April, 1858 and was well into her seventy-seventh year when she died.

Her parents were Thorbergur Thorbergsson and his wife, who maintained for many years, a large household at Saemundarstoðum in Vindhaelishreppi (district) in Húnavatnssýsla (a county in north-western Iceland). Sigurlaug was one of twenty-three children. There were fourteen full brothers and sisters, and nine half-brothers and sisters. Her father had married twice.

Sigurlaug was brought up in the home of Arni Jónsson, the district director of welfare, at Thverá, in Hallárdal in Húnavatnssýsla from the time she was one year old. When she was twenty, she went to work as a hired girl at Miklabae in Blonduhlið for the Reverend Jakob Benediktsson.

  
  In 1883, with her fiancé, Jón Jónsson Freeman, she left Iceland for Canada. They were married that same year in Winnipeg and made their home there for the first two years of their stay in Canada. They then moved to the Argyle settlement, acquired land there, and lived there until 1903.  
   

The Woodbine schoolhouse in Belmont, Manitoba where Sigurlaug's children attended.

  
 

They then sold their land and home and moved to the Pacific Coast. There they bought sixty acres of land a few miles south of Blaine. They have lived there since and although Jón died a few years ago (1931), Sigurlaug continued to live on the place with the help of her children who have established homes in the neighborhood. She has needed their help and care because she was in ill health many of the last years.
 		  
 

The Freeman home south of Blaine, Washington

    
  Jón and Sigurlaug had eleven children. Two died young but nine lived to adulthood. Of these are three sisters who have died: Kristín, Jakobína, and Jónína, two of whom were married. The children who remain are Kristján, married to Jakobína Pétursdóttir Finnson; Jóhanna, married to a man of Finnish descent, Frank Fosberg; Lúðvik and Karl, both married to non-Icelandic women, Elín and Sigríður, married to non-Icelandic men.

 
    Sigríður (Sarah), Elín (Lena) sitting on fence, with brother Lúðvik (Lewis) standing with their collie.  
  In addition to these children, Sigurlaug leaves twenty-five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. In the cemetery by California Creek, not far from her home, now lie with her, seven of her dear ones: husband, a son-in-law, three daughters, and two grandchildren. One might say that she has never left her home that was her whole life, but, rather, that she has simply moved to another room into which some of her family had moved earlier. The settlement is now completed and the new land is consecrated and made sacred for her descendants for all time - their ancestral domain and their father - and - motherland.
 		  
  Sigurlaug and granddaughters Joyce Fillhouer, Ethel Olson on the front porch of the Freeman home.    
  Sigurlaug was a handsome, motherly woman. She was cheerful, kind, and peace loving. She was a lover of music and literature even though her arduous life gave her little opportunity to develop these talents. This is easy to understand about a mother of eleven children with the work and difficulties of pioneer life on her shoulders. The battle with poverty and hardship, sickness and death of loved ones, and her own ill health in her last years - all these she bore with calmness and composure. Courage and equanimity were her unique characteristics.

Her home was her world and she would bear any burden so that peace and harmony would reign there. To do this she often had to control her own temper and keep her troubles to herself. As evidence of this it can be pointed out that at the graves of her loved ones she held back her own tears to that she could comfort her children. She did not allow herself the emotional release of soothing tears so that she would not distress them more.


 

  
   

Sigurlaug on the farm (Ethel Olson photo).

  
   

Sigurlaug and Jón posing for Ethel Olson's camera.


 

 Her fear of an imminent operation she concealed from her children until the danger was passed. They never saw her shed a tear, complain or afraid. But these were in actuality sacrifices or tributes which she gladly laid on the alter of home and mother love for the children. Indeed the relationship between mother and children was most remarkable. On every holiday they gathered in the old home and looked to their mother for comfort and good advice. They loved her and respected her and she responded with a mother's love and complete acceptance. Only death could break those bonds. No, not even that, because just recently the author received a letter from her daughter-in-law in which she says "Even though it is half a year since she died, we miss her just as much."  
       
  Another daughter answered my questions concerning the funeral sermon with these words: "Write your own concept of an ideal mother and you won't stray from what is true about her." I do know that all the children were in heartfelt agreement in this, and nothing more will be added to that eulogy.
Sigurlaug was a liberal in her outlook but kindness and love of peace kept her from involving herself in religious questions with anyone. The Passion Hymns (Matthias Jochumsson) and the sermons of the Reverend Haraldur Nielsson were the books that she read and found solace in during the last hours. She received from Reverend Haraldur assurance of the continuance of life after death that had become her certain knowledge.


 

  
   

Drawings by Sigurlaug's daughter, Jakobina.

  
 


The funeral service took place at the family home of the deceased and a large crowd of neighbors, friends, and relatives attended.
God bless the memory of a gentle mother and a noble Icelandic woman.

-A.E.K.		  
       
  Concerning the memorial to Sigurlaug Freeman:

The memorial was written by the Reverend Albert E. Kristjansson, minister of the Icelandic Free Church of Blaine. The date of the publication is October 2, 1935 and the paper in which it was published was most likely Heimskringla. At that time there were two Icelandic weekly newspapers published in Winnipeg, Logberg and Heimskringla. The latter was the more liberal of the two and it is most likely that A.E.K. would write for it.
In the translation I have tried to keep the tone and the feeling of the original as well as accuracy of content.

-Halldor C. Karason
February 4, 1987
Bellingham, Washington