Halldór Jónatansson Photo: Almanak 1950
Sesselja Oddsdóttir Photo: Almanak 1950
Halldór Jónatansson was born in Húnavatnssýsla on February 19, 1873. He is registered as H. J. Halldorson in the west.
Spouse: Sesselja Oddsdóttir b. October 11, 1873 in Dalasýsla, d. January 30, 1958. She took the first name Cecilia in the west.
Children: 1. Friðrik 2. Jónatan 3. Alexandrína 4. Oddur Gestur 5. Lillian 6. Steinunn Victoria
Halldór came west at one year old with his parents and siblings to Kinmount, Ontario in 1874. They settled in New Iceland a year later and there Halldór became very ill from the smallpox that plagued the settlers in the area. His sister, Guðrún, died but Halldór recovered, though lost most of his sight for two weeks. He accompanied his parents to N. Dakota in the fall of 1880 and lived in Hallson. In early 1904, the situation in the Icelandic settlements in N. Dakota had become difficult because there was no land for the generation that had grown up since 1880. Meetings were called because reports of sufficient land in Western Canada had been received. At one meeting, a land survey committee was elected and Halldór as its chairman. He took land in the Lakes Settlement (Vatnabyggð) in Saskatchewan in 1905 and was located in the Wynyard area. Halldór ran a shop on his land and opened a post office which he called Sleipnir. He proved to be extremely good to his countrymen during the early years of struggle in the settlement.
Halldór built this house in 1905 and it was a short distance from where Wynyard is today. In 1908, Halldór moved this house to the village and continued the operation of the store and the post office there. Photo: RbQ.