Hólmfríður Stephensen died in Chicago in 1898, around forty years of age. She had then lived in the United States for a quarter of a century and had an incredible time there. Immigration from all over the world was unprecedented, discoveries and advances in science were incredible at the time. Hólmfríður followed the path of education and started writing and composing early, she read a lot and expressed her opinions about people and issues in essays and reviews. She never forgot her Icelandic origins, corresponded with relatives and friends back home at Frón. In 1897, her play “Sálin hans Jóns míns” was published in Iceland and was the first play published by an Icelandic woman. In the work, Hólmfríður discusses the Western Icelandic reality as it appeared to her in the last years of the 19th century, Western Icelandic had manifested itself as the characters in the play demonstrate.
Matthías Jochumsson was probably a household friend because Þorvaldur, Hólmfríður’s father, and the poet knew each other well. When word got out in the West that Matthías was interested in visiting Icelandic settlements in the West, she sent him a letter that clearly moved him because he wrote to her on that occasion. The poem is the conclusion of Matthías’s obituaries that appeared in Framsókn, an Icelandic women’s newspaper, in May 1900 and read as follows: “Our newspapers have mentioned far too little of this remarkable woman, who died last year in Chicago in her prime. I remembered little of her from before she moved west in 1873 with her parents at the age of 13-14. Later, I got to know her well, first through an exchange of letters and then during my trip west in 1893. Her father had promised me that she would receive me if I came west and he had passed away. That was the case. She and her siblings gave me the best welcome. Beautiful soul, in my eyes, the most beautiful of all the Icelandic women in America that I have seen. She was beautiful and special, agile and cheerful and gifted with extraordinary intelligence. She had received most of the school education that daughters of better people get in big cities. She was a poet and an excellent writer (in English) and often sent essays and book reviews to newspapers and magazines. She was a connoisseur of music and painted (sometimes with great genius) and I have never known an Icelandic woman who was more educated or better able to get along in the beautiful and the big world (le beau monde), regardless of whether she had to speak English, French, Italian or German. She put a lot of love on her old country especially with her stories and poems. It was she who alone (as far as I know) kept our literature alive and wrote about it in American newspapers and did it with great artistic taste. It was she who read over and edited the speech I gave to the director of the Chicago exhibition, and if I had never managed to meet him, she would not have hesitated to meet this noble gentleman for me. I have both letters and essays from her. All in English. Some of it would be more than worthwhile if it were printed in Icelandic. I replied to her first letter (from 1888) with these words:
Eg sá þig barn með bjarta lokka
á bak við marga tímans hrönn
Með augun blá og yndisþokka
Mín ættlandsdóttir hrein og sönn!
Ei kyssir sól og sunnanandi
á sumarmorgni kalda grund
svo yndislega upplífgandi
sem orð þín, svanni, mína lund.
Og aldrei fósturfold þín teigar
er fyrsti morgungeislinn skín
eins glatt og lystugt ljósins veigar
og línur þínar sólin mín.
Eg fann þar líf, sem fjöri gæddi
og fann þar yl, sem vermdi mig
og fann þar auð, er gulli gæddi
minn grýtta og svala vetrarstig.
Eg fann þar mína fornu drauma
hinn fagurhvelfda dísarsal
og ódauðlega Edenstrauma
í æsku minnar sumardal.
Þú ert af segulbergi brotin
frá bragningum er kyns þín rót
og því er guðvafsgulli skotin
þín göfuglynda sál, mín snót.
Eg syng ei hér um Sjafnar funa
en satt er enn, eg reyni það
sem er eilífð hrífur manninn muna
hin milda snót, sem Gothe kvað.
Ó þigg nú, mær, í þessu stefi
frá þinnar móður aringlóð
eitt guðlegt skar, sem geymt eg hefi
og gaf hún mér í bróðurlóð.
M.J.”
English version by Thor group.