Dorothy Canning Miller Photo: aaa.si.edu
Sveinn Kristján Bjarnarson Photo: VÍÆ III
Sveinn Kristján Bjarnarson was born in Snæfellsnessýsla on January 13, 1887. He died in Stockbridge, Massachusetts on July 8, 1960. He took the names Sveinn K. B. Johnson and Edgar Holger Cahill in the west.
Spouse: 1) 1919 Katherine Gridley, they divorced in 1927 2) 1938 Dorothy Canning Miller.
Children: With Katherine: 1. Jane Ann Blumenfeld
Sveinn, registered as Kristján Sveinn Björnsson inVesturfaraskrá, came west to Winnipeg in 1889 with his parents, Bjarni Bjarnarson and Vigdís Bjarnadóttir. They lived there for some time, but then moved south to Pembina, N. Dakota. There Sveinn and Katherine parted ways and Sveinn worked for farmers in the following years, both in Dakota and Minnesota. He always dreamed of getting an education and gradually he succeeded. He moved to New York, adopted the author’s name Edgar Holger Cahill, and hid his origins. He said he was born in 1893 on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minnesota, he vanished completely from the Icelandic society in North America. See more in Atvinna below.