Published June 20, 2005. Reprinted with permission from the Deseret Morning News.

Iceland memorial ceremony set
Rodger L. Hardy, Deseret Morning News

Richard Johnson, left, David Ashby and Clark Taylor place a rock from the Westman Islands in the plaza of the existing Icelandic memorial in Spanish Fork. Photo by Keith Johnson, Deseret Morning News

SPANISH FORK — LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley will dedicate a refurbished memorial made in honor of settlers from Iceland on Saturday.

Olafur Ragnar Grimmson, the president of Iceland, will also be at the 3 p.m. dedication. It will be the second trip he's made to Spanish Fork; the first was his visit in 1997 for the Icelandic Association of Utah's centennial anniversary.

The memorial, a lighthouse built in 1938, continues to bind folks with Icelandic heritage, said David Ashby, a spokesman for the association. The lighthouse is not only symbolic of a seafaring people, but also represents the light shown on the world through the religious convictions of those early settlers, who were LDS converts.

The city's settlers left Iceland in 1854 and arrived in Utah in 1855.

Icelandic members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints kept coming — at least 410 of them — until 1914 when LDS missionaries were pulled out of Iceland.

New research indicates that more than 410 Icelanders may have immigrated to Spanish Fork during that time, Ashby said.

LDS missionaries weren't allowed to return to Iceland until 1975.

The first Icelandic settlers' conversion and subsequent migration to America cannot be separated, he said. It also launched a general migration of Icelanders to North America during the rough financial climate in Iceland at the time.

The refurbished monument, which President Hinckley will dedicate as the Icelandic Memorial, includes the names of those first 410 immigrants engraved on a marble wall.

A rock near a pond at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean where early converts were baptized was shipped to Spanish Fork to be part of the memorial.

Surrounding the rock, landscapers are installing eight plaques on an octagon that describe the Icelandic experience in coming to Spanish Fork.

One tells how they built a church in 1887 where they held services in Icelandic.

When the lighthouse monument was built, it had a working light. That light hasn't worked for years, Ashby said. Crews restored the light by running an underground power line to it.

"The lighthouse helped preserve our heritage. It's still a symbol for (Icelandic) descendants," he said.

The dedication is part of a four-day celebration that will begin Thursday at 7 p.m. with a cowboy-style barbecue at the city park behind the Spanish Fork Library to honor the western culture in which the first settlers found themselves.

On Friday, beginning at 10 a.m., several presenters will describe the Icelandic culture and history that remains important to the descendants of those pioneers. That will be held at an LDS Church at 1006 E. 200 South.

The memorial dedication follows on Saturday at 400 South and 800 East.

At 7 p.m. an Icelandic choir of about 50 voices will perform at the Provo Tabernacle, 100 S. University Ave.

Another 50 Icelanders, including friends, spouses and an Icelandic National League of Iceland tour group, are also expected, Ashby said.

"We're extremely fortunate to have these people come over and rub shoulders with them," association committee member Jack Tobiasson said. "It builds bridges."

An evening devotional, at the 1006 E. 200 South LDS church in Spanish Fork, begins at 7 p.m. Speakers include Janette Hales Beckham, former general president of the LDS Church's Young Women's organization and a descendant of Icelandic immigrants.

Other speakers are Kristy Robertson, president of the Utah Icelandic Association and Craig Holdaway, who recently returned from an LDS mission to Iceland.

E-mail: rodger@desnews.com