Helen Lorraine Fjola Sigvaldason

Our beloved Mom, sister, auntie, and friend passed away suddenly but peacefully at 1:30 am on September 11, 2016 in hospital in Victoria BC, with her daughter Dr. Margo Matwychuk at her side in person and her daughter Dr. Alana Matwychuk and son-in-law Dr. Jeffrey Penn there in spirit. She was 80 years young and suffering the effects of COPD. She was predeceased by her husband William Matwychuk in October 1971. Helen Lorraine Fjola Sigvaldason (Matwychuk) was born on January 5, 1936 when her parents owned a dairy in Bissett, Manitoba. The family returned to their home in Riverton, Manitoba a few years later after her father lost his leg in a hunting accident. With the exception of a few years away, she lived her entire life in her Manitoba Interlake community surrounded by her Icelandic Canadian family and friends. Mom was always one step ahead of those around her. She was a headstrong, brilliant woman and multi-business owner in a time when few women did that sort of thing and, as a consequence, she was a role model for many. She skipped a grade and, at age 17, was the first girl to graduate Grade 12 in Riverton. She began studies to be a teacher but really always wanted to be an international journalist travelling the world. She married the love of her life, William Matwychuk, who had come to Gimli from Alberta to join the RAF and with whom with she began her world travels in 1960s Europe. During their marriage, they first lived in Gimli, then Angus ON, Gaggenau and Hugelsheim, Germany, and then Gimli again. Both of their daughters were born in Gimli, Alana Katherine in 1955, Margo Lyn in 1957. Soon after returning to Gimli in 1966, there was an opportunity to move to Africa, however, those plans were derailed by Bill’s battles with cancer. Lorraine stayed in Gimli until 1975 when she bought a house on Wolseley Avenue in Winnipeg when her daughters were both in university. She then lived for many years in Stonewall where she was a successful and contented business owner and community member. After retiring (and a bout with cancer), she spent time at Draumaland, her cottage at Hnausa, just 6 miles south of her hometown of Riverton. She spent her retirement years designing and organizing many building projects on the house at Hnausa, expanding the old 1930 house to become a treasured spot, our dreamland, for family and friends; traveling to foreign countries, and visiting with her daughters and son-in-law in Victoria BC (Margo) as well as Truro NS and Edgartown MA (Alana and Jeff). In the last year, she came to permanently live with her daughter Margo in Victoria, although she still maintained Draumaland. Mom choose to spend her life as a working woman. She worked as a waitress, nanny, resort housekeeper, and permit teacher as a teenager and young mother. When her family returned home from Europe in 1966, she had enrolled for university but instead, moving to Gimli, she ran the Gimli office of the Interlake News, worked at CIBC and Interlake Insurance Agency. In 1972, together with Dick Arnason and Alan MacFarlane, she founded the Vesterland land development company in Gimli. Then in 1976, she bought an insurance company in Stonewall and she founded Sigvaldason Agencies Ltd, and for twenty years she and her staff provided high quality insurance brokerage services and also expanded the business to include property management and real estate, with Lorraine opening the Interlake Agency Real Estate branch in the Stonewall area. And, she was active in the Chamber of Commerce. Mom was always involved in her extended family, community, and a life-long human rights supporter. Our mom (and our dad) taught us about social justice from our very early years. She not only respected everyone and all living things, but was always ready to publically state her views and stand in support with others. She began a campaign at one point to protect the moose on Hecla Island, was extremely proud to have marched with upwards of 1 million people in the 1982 Peace March in New York (she also left the march several times to bring back food to the marchers), and was often one of the first people in a room to challenge racism and sexism and to stand in solidarity with Indigenous peoples. She was an early leader in the continuing campaign to save Lake Winnipeg and was particularly vocal in her concern with the role of hydro dams in the destruction of the lake. She was also a strong believer in the power of education and the opportunities that education offers. She took university and business development courses over the years. As a young single mother and widow, she put much of her financial, emotional and intellectual resources into supporting her daughters in their studies towards their PhDs and in their careers as a practicing psychologist and university professor. She encouraged, advised, celebrated, mourned, got angry, and constantly had our backs, sharing our student lives through her many visits to us in Calgary, Minneapolis, New York, and Brazil. She regularly served as a consultant to her son-in-law Jeff on all things related to the kitchen—not withstanding her own questionable competence and patience for culinary tasks. She made close friends with our friends and quickly came to support, encourage and advise them as well. She also maintained lifelong friendships with people she had grown up with and those she met throughout her life. Whether it was us, our friends, her friends, or past employees, she always encouraged everyone, but particularly other women, to try something they had never tried before. Mom so loved her very large Icelandic Canadian Sigvaldason/Eastman/Austman family rooted in the Interlake, and was always ready to make room in that family for anyone who wanted to become part of it. She was predeceased by her beloved Mother and Father, Anna (Eastman) and Rosman Arelius Sigvaldason of Riverton. She deeply missed her sisters and brothers-in-laws: Dorothy and Stoney Bjarnason (Riverton), Sylvia and Allan Miller (Nolalu, ON), Katherine (Kae) and Maurice Dozois (Winnipeg); her brothers: Franklin (Riverton) and Halldor (Dori) (Winnipeg); her brother-in-law George Jackson (Caledon, ON) and her parents-in-law, Joseph and Sophia Matwychuk (Kelowna and Edmonton). She mourned the untimely loss of her nephew David Jackson and her niece and wedding flower girl Beverley (Miller) Tait. In addition to her daughters and son-in-law, she is survived by her furry grandkids Franklin, Billie, Fjola, and Fusi. She will be greatly missed by her older brother and sister-in-law Allan and Dee (Winnipeg), her older sister Margret Jackson (Caledon, ON), and her baby sister and brother-in-law Marilyn and Dalton Brown (Winnipeg). She is survived by her many nieces, nephews, grand nieces and nephews and their spouses. She loved for all of them to come spend time with her in Hnausa and she was a special glue around which the family continued to come together after our Ama and Afi passed away. She became a second mother to our cousins Paula Dozois and Peter and Angela Dozois. She is also survived by her sisters-in-law Shirley Sigvaldason and Edith Baldwin and by her Matwychuk in-laws Russell, Stephen, Sophie, Lianne, and her Matwychuk nieces and nephews. She will be deeply missed by her lifelong friend Shirley (Stefanson) MacFarlane (Gimli) with whom she shared weekly and at times daily telephone conversations. She was predeceased by the other four members of the six member Riverton Westenders group: Kae, Joan, Sig, and Collie. A celebration of Lorraine’s life will take place in Victoria on Saturday, September 17, 2016 at 10:00 am at First Memorial Services, 4725 Falaise Drive, Victoria, BC and in Riverton, Manitoba on October 8, 2016 at 11:00 a.m. at the Riverton-Hnausa Lutheran Church, 53 Riverton Ave E, Riverton, MB. In lieu of flowers and if people so choose, donations may be made to a charity of your choice, or to the Icelandic River Lodge, Box 448, Riverton, MB R0C 2R0 for furnishing for the common area. Condolences may be left for the family at www.firstmemorialsaanich.com

Góða Nótt Elskan, Guð blessi, ég elska þig

Arrangements under the direction of First Memorial Funeral Services, Victoria, BC.