Accomplishment:
We established communications between Icelanders living in the Chicago area – both native and born in Iceland.
We communicated with Icelanders in other states of U.S., Canada (Winnipeg), Embassy of Iceland in Washington, D.C., and government officers in Iceland.
Meetings:
Very pleasant get-togethers at picnics and dinner meetings, enjoying Icelandic music, dancing, card playing, and just talking with new and old friends and having a good time together. At some of these meetings we had speakers – both local and from Winnipeg, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., and Iceland. Our most popular meetings were the Thorrablot with imported traditional centuries-old Icelandic food, and, later on, musicians and entertainers all from Iceland. We started small, thirty to fifty people to begin with in attendance and ended up with 350 to 400.
Achievement:
I think our greatest influence was our Þorrablót, started in 1959, if I remember correctly, and, later influenced Icelandic clubs all over the world to do the same thing, even in Australia, but we were the first ones.
Valur Egilsson