A Gimli home with historical connections to Icelanders who immigrated to Manitoba and who made contributions to the early development of Gimli is being lovingly remembered by the descendants of one family who lived in the home for decades.
The home at 44 Fourth Ave has had three owners since it was built in 1931. The Paulson family lived in the home over the course of the 1930s and 1940s. The Stevens family then took up residence in the mid-1940s followed by the Barlow family, who purchased it in the late 1970s.
Norman and Margret Stevens spent over 30 years in the home, from 1946 to 1978, raising their family and contributing to the development of the community and the commercial fishing industry as their forebears had.
Aileen Grant and Kristine Ennis, the granddaughters of Margret and Norman, shared their memories and photos with the Express, saying the Stevens family were among the earliest of Gimli’s residents and played an integral role in the development of the town. They also contributed to the social fabric of their community through their preservation of the Icelandic culture and history.
Kristine Ennis, who moved to Gimli from the U.S. with her husband and daughter, said she has a strong connection to the home.
“My grandparents Norman and Margret Stevens raised their family in that home and I have many fond memories of it myself,” said Ennis.
The Stevens family helped develop Gimli in its early days, she said, and are part of the Gimli Saga, published in 1975 by the Gimli Women’s Institute. The Saga provides a history of the Icelanders who immigrated to Manitoba and the contributions they made.
Ennis’ cousin Aileen Grant, who now lives in B.C., said her grandparents were quite poor in the 1930s and early 1940s, and that it was only through “hard work and sacrifice” that they were able to buy the Fourth Avenue home from the Paulson family.
Over the years her grandmother Margret made a substantial contribution to the preservation of Gimli’s history, she said, by spending countless volunteer hours working on the Gimli Saga from the dining room of the home.
“One of my fondest memories as a child in the early seventies was watching her type and write at that dining table, among stacks of great old leather-bound books and documents on special loan to her from the library archives,” said Grant. “I was allowed to look at, but not touch, what appeared to my young mind as mysterious ancient volumes from the olden days of New Iceland. It was the award-winning Gimli Saga she was working on as a member of the history committee. Over those many months she researched, interviewed local families, wrote, edited and even illustrated to bring that Saga to life. I recall numerous visitors to the house related to that purpose, including from the committee chair, Ethel Howard and then-Mayor Violet Einarson.”
Margret Stevens was born into the Blondal family and was adopted by the Skaptason family after her mother died. Her father Bjorn Blondal built the original Lakeview Hotel in Gimli and the historic H.P. Tergesen home, which is a few doors down from the Stevens’ home and one of Gimli’s heritage homes.
Margret’s uncle, Jon Blondal, was a renowned photographer who founded Baldwin and Blöndal, a studio that produced volumes of photographs of New Icelanders, which Grant said are cherished by their descendants and by historians. Margret’s brother, August Blondal, was a physician and a talented artist who designed the Pioneer Memorial Cairn in Gimli to commemorate the arrival of the first Icelandic settlers in the area in 1875. Margret’s adoptive father Joseph Skaptason was appointed the provincial chief inspector of fisheries around 1920.
Margret, who was a school teacher, was inspired to produce the Gimli Saga through her lifelong role in the Gimli Women’s Institute, beginning in 1922 when she was 20 years old. After the final version of the book was published, Margret then started working on her and Norman’s respective family histories. The dedication Margret had for historiography inspired Grant herself to pursue her own work in genealogy.
Grant and Ennis shared part of a scrapbook Margret had kept. It contains photographs that include the original Lakeview Hotel in 1907 and the hockey team on which Norman played. Margret also preserved newspaper clippings of notable occasions, information about her family and obituaries.
Like Margret’s family, Norman’s side of the family also had a connection to the commercial fishery. His descendants worked in the industry and Norman himself worked first as a clerk then manager of the Armstrong Gimli Fish Company. Norman’s father, Capt. John Stevens, worked on the M.S. Goldfield freighter, which transported fish from camps and communities along Lake Winnipeg. A room in the Selkirk Marine Museum pays homage to the Stevens family contribution to the fishing industry.
Over the years, the Stevens family entertained a number of notable Manitobans at the Fourth Avenue home, including Dr. George Johnson, a physician who later served as MLA, cabinet minister and Manitoba’s 20th Lieutenant Governor and who also earned the Order of Canada. Johnson’s wife Doris (nee Blondal) was Margret’s first cousin.
Grant said the most frequent visitor to the Stevens’ home was the Johnsons’ springer spaniel, Lucy, who use to roam the neighbourhood and would promptly arrive at 11 a.m. on the porch where Margret would greet her with a chunk of cheddar cheese.
“My grandparents were great examples of that first generation of Canadian-born New Icelanders, with strong ties to other Gimli families and to their Icelandic forebears, cousins, culture, language and history,” said Grant.
The Fourth Avenue home was originally owned by the then village mayor Christian P. Paulson, who emigrated from Iceland in 1876, a year after the first Icelanders arrived in the area known as New Iceland. The Stevens’ descendants (Norman’s parents) had also emigrated that year and Grant said she thinks the Paulsons and Stevens families “likely” knew each another through their connection to the commercial fishing industry.
Grant said she’s grateful to the Barlows for their stewardship of the home from the late seventies onwards, and they had in the past graciously allowed members of the Stevens family to visit the home on several occasions, which “meant so much to me and other descendants.”
The last decade [1970s] in which Norman and Margret lived in the Fourth Avenue home was one that all the grandchildren and their last surviving child particularly remember and cherish, said Grant. There were many family gatherings, traditional Icelandic food and tales of Gimli. Norman and Margret celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at the house in 1975.
“Two years from now, many of the Stevens descendants will reunite for the 150th Gimli anniversary and reflect fondly on that gathering 50 years prior,” said Grant.
The house, which had been formerly named the Paulson House, was renamed by Gimli council a few months ago to the Barlow House to recognize former mayor and councillor Bill Barlow and his family’s 45-year history of caring for the home.
