The mill hasn’t pumped today.

Well, I understood the words—Amma’s translation—but it wasn’t until I l knew something of my grandfather’s history that I understood what they meant. This is why Roots are so important. You find and keep the clues before they make any sense.

My Amma’s voice helped me years later when I was trying to learn Icelandic, remembered things she told me and made sense of it. Unlike my mother, Amma was very willing to answer my questions. Bedtime came first. I used to go to Gimli off-season, too, and stayed with either my grandparents or my Auntie Anna, when we had Easter vacation or my parents went on a trip. (My brother stayed with his best friend, his cousin Joey, Uncle Joe’s and Aunt Laura’s son.)

I always used to say “pleasant dreams”, don’t know who taught me that. I asked Amma how to say it in Icelandic. Her answer sounded like this to me: locte the drayma vel.” Years later I figured out that I was saying “let thyself dream well”. I’ve looked up Amma’s translation, couldn’t find the reflexive wish. But you can say: skemmtileger draumar.

The most significant sentence she taught me was a grammar lesson I needed to know.

Summertime. I was excited to be invited on a picnic with some friends. I asked Amma how did I say “I’m going to go too.”?

Ég ætla að fara líka

It´s a lovely idiom, useful for everything you intend to do: Ég ætla að læra íslensku

I’m going to learn Icelandic!!!

First I have to tell you that my Icelandic grandfather was ahead of his time. Before he left Iceland he learned skill as a tinsmith. He was not in the vanguard of emigrants who left Iceland in 1875 because of untenable living conditions but he came soon after, with a salable trade. I think he was 24 years old when he met my grandmother in Winnipeg; she was 17. They married and moved to Churchbridge, SK, where they didn’t like the water and moved again. He worked his trade in Winnipeg, tinning roofs. I think I learned the phrase “cat on a hot tin roof” from his recollections of his work in Winnipeg in the searing summers until he moved to Gimli, where the water was good. He started Tergesen’s Store in 1899 (still in the family today, run by my cousins) and in 1907 built the house on Third Avenue from blueprints he bought from Chicago. He built an enormous concrete rain barrel in the basement and put a windmill on the roof of the barn to supply the power to pump the water. He had the house wired for electricity years before power arrived in Gimli. After that , I guess the windmill supplemented the electric service and saved some money on the bill. So by the time I came along his habit was well established of watching the windmill every day and night. Hence:

“myllan hefur ekki pumpa i dag”

I could say it but I couldn’t understand it. I asked my Amma what he was saying. What did it mean?