Quiet courage
How birth control came to Lundar
Katrín Níelsdóttir, Winnipeg, MB
In the quiet farming community of Lundar, Manitoba – part of the broadening Icelandic settlement established by Icelandic immigrants in the late 19th century – two women quietly changed the course of women’s lives. In an era when birth control was illegal, sexuality was taboo, and maternal exhaustion was an unspoken burden, Soffía Líndal and Sigríður Hjálmarson did something both radical and compassionate: they helped local women access diaphragms during the 1930s, giving them the power to decide when – or if – to have another child.
Their story has never been widely told. Yet their courage rippled across generations, shaping the freedoms many women take for granted today.
A life of strength: Soffía Líndal
Soffía Jónsdóttir Þorsteinsson was born in Ísafjörður, Iceland, in 1877. After losing her mother at a young age, she immigrated to Canada with her father and stepmother in 1892. Following a brief time in Winnipeg, she moved to Lundar, where she married Jón Líndal in 1895. They began farming with almost nothing, but through relentless hard work, they built a home and a life rooted in faith, hospitality, and community service.
Over the next 25 years, Soffía gave birth to 16 children, between 1896 and 1921. Incredibly, every one of them survived to adulthood – a rare outcome at a time when maternal and infant mortality was high. She rarely relied on hired help and ran a household known for hospitality, music, and generosity. She served as president of the Lutheran Women’s Association in Lundar and was active in the Women’s Institute, contributing to countless community projects.
And yet, even this strong and capable woman understood the cost of endless pregnancies.
Her granddaughter recalls: “Amma told my mother, ‘I would never have had 16 children if there had been a way to prevent pregnancy.’”
This simple, powerful sentence reveals both love and truth. She adored her children. But she had no choices – because women were not allowed to have them.
A life of care: Sigríður Hjálmarson
Sigríður Hjálmarson (née Halldórsson) was born in Arnes, Manitoba, in 1896 to Icelandic parents. In 1923, she graduated as a nurse from Ripley Memorial Hospital in Minneapolis, specializing in obstetrics and women’s health at a time when few rural nurses had formal training.
In 1926, she married Dr. Númi Hjálmarson, and the couple settled in Lundar the following year. For fourteen years, they served as the town’s medical lifeline. Sigríður was not just “the doctor’s wife” – she was often the one who arrived first, stayed longest, and cared most deeply. She later continued her service in Pilot Mound, Woodlands, and again in Lundar.
She was known for her gentleness, competence, and unwavering dedication to the community.
The reality for women in the early 20th century
Large families were often idealized in history books. But the truth is more complicated: many women suffered in silence – emotionally, physically, and economically.
Before birth control was legal, pregnancy was constant. Many Icelandic families in rural Manitoba had 10, 12, even 16 children. Some were able to feed and clothe them. Others could not.
After the First World War, doctors and reformers in Britain and the United States began advocating for contraception for health reasons. By the 1920s, a few Canadian activists – mostly educated, urban Protestants – began to do the same. They believed that every child should be wanted and that women should not be forced into yearly pregnancies.
Still, contraception was controversial and often condemned by religious and political leaders. Clinics were raided. Advocates were defamed. In Quebec, Catholic leaders insisted that women become pregnant regularly. Even in Protestant rural communities, talking about birth control was considered improper.
And yet, women still found ways – quietly, secretly, bravely.
The underground network of care in Lundar
In the 1930s, diaphragms became more available, but only through physicians or underground networks. Distribution was still technically illegal. Many doctors refused. Some believed in helping women but could not risk their careers.
In Lundar, something extraordinary happened.
Two women – one a mother of sixteen, the other a trained nurse – stepped forward.
Soffía, trusted matriarch, community leader.
Sigríður, nurse, doctor’s wife, caregiver.
Together, they created a quiet, private, compassionate system of support for local women who could not bear another pregnancy.
They did not preach. They did not shame. They simply helped.
Her granddaughter recalls: “When these two ladies distributed the diaphragms, it was during the 1930s. There were people who were poor as church mice. Some women could barely feed the children they already had.”
They didn’t see birth control as rebellion. They saw it as mercy.
A radical act of love
Unlike urban activists who saw birth control as a political issue, these women acted from lived experience and empathy. They knew personally that children born into exhaustion and poverty suffered. They knew the toll on women’s bodies and spirits. Their own lives had taught them that love and sacrifice were not the same as endless childbearing.
They also knew this truth: preventing a pregnancy was an act of care.
In a time when society praised women for how many children they had, these two Icelandic-Canadian women dared to say: Enough. Women deserve rest, choice, and dignity.
They were decades ahead of the law. They were decades ahead of feminism. They were, quite simply, brave.
The legacy: a new generation of women
By the 1950s and 60s – thanks to groundwork laid by women like Soffía and Sigríður – change began to reach rural communities. The Winnipeg Birth Control Society was founded in 1934. Knowledge spread slowly but steadily. By the time their daughters and granddaughters were adults, things were different.
Women began to have fewer children. Some finished school. Some worked outside the home.
Some chose when to marry – or whether to marry at all. Some even went to university.
Her granddaughter reflected: “As women, I think we were born at the right time.”
Her generation had opportunities the previous one did not: to finish school; to earn a wage; to delay or space pregnancies; o dream beyond survival.
Birth control changed everything.
The dark truth: when women had no choices
It is easy to romanticize pioneer life and early Icelandic settlements. We tell stories of strength, faith, music, poetry, and community. All of that is true. But there was another side – one rarely spoken aloud. When women had no control over reproduction, their lives were often shaped by silence, shame, and fear.
Her granddaughter remembered the stories that were whispered only decades later:
Teenage girls who became pregnant and were sent away.
Families who forced daughters to surrender babies for adoption.
Young women who disappeared to “maternity homes” often run by religious institutions.
Letters written from Ontario pretending to be “away at school,” hiding pregnancies from the community.
Women returning empty-handed, carrying lifelong grief.
These were not isolated cases. They were common across Canada.
Statistics Canada recorded nearly 600,000 births deemed “illegitimate” between 1945 and 1971. The vast majority of those mothers were coerced into surrendering their babies. Abortion was illegal until 1969 and could result in life imprisonment. Birth control was still difficult or shameful to access. Single mothers were judged as “fallen.” And even within Icelandic-Canadian families, silence was often the rule.
Her granddaughter said: “Our mom always told us – there’s no shame in a baby.” That belief stood in stark contrast to the culture around them.
Progress – and a warning
By the 1970s, contraception became legal; abortion was decriminalized, and family planning became part of public health. Women gained access to education, careers, financial independence, and the ability to choose if and when to have children. Daughters and granddaughters of women like Soffía and Sigríður went on to university, earned degrees, and entered the workforce.
Their courage made this possible.
Women of the next generation believed that life would continue to improve. For a long time, it did.
Her granddaughter reflected: “I thought everything was getting better and better for women.”
But then, she said, something changed. “In the last ten years, everything’s blown up.”
She began to read about efforts in the United States to roll back reproductive rights. She heard similar rhetoric from some Canadian politicians. She watched as access to abortion and birth control – once seen as settled issues – became battlegrounds again.
“I don’t think 40-year-old women know how good they’ve got it,” she said. “I’m worried for my granddaughter, great nieces, and the future generations”
Honouring the legacy of quiet courage
The story of Soffía Líndal and Sigríður Hjálmarson is not just women’s history.
It is Icelandic Canadian history.
It is rural prairie history.
It is community history.
It is our history.
Their work was not loud.
They did not march in the streets.
They did not publish manifestos.
They did something far more
intimate and radical:
They trusted women.
They believed women.
They helped women when
no one else would.
They gave them knowledge.
They gave them tools.
They gave them choices.
They gave them their lives back.
Because of women like Soffía and Sigríður, the next generations had the freedom to finish school, to work, to travel, to earn university degrees, to choose when and whether to have children.
Their legacy shaped the future for generations.
The work is not finished
Today, the rights they helped secure are under threat once again. History is not a straight line toward progress. Rights can be expanded – and rights can be taken away.
If we forget the past, we risk repeating it.
If we stay silent, others will decide for us.
If we tell these stories, we remember the cost of freedom.
The courage of these two women from Lundar reminds us that change does not always begin in parliament or in courtrooms. Sometimes it begins in a farmhouse kitchen, between two friends who refuse to let another woman suffer.
We owe it to them – and to our daughters and granddaughters – to protect what our Ammas made possible.
