Community activist.
Born at Lundar on 3 January 1922, daughter of Gudmundur Olafur Thorsteinson and Bergthora Kristin Petursdottir, she attended Success Business College in Winnipeg. In 1944, she married Meros Bohdan Leckow and lived in New York and Los Angeles before returning to Winnipeg in 1952. Over the next 30 years, she worked as a secretary in Winnipeg hospitals, helping establish Manitoba’s first Poison Control Centre for Children at the Children’s Hospital and serving as Executive Secretary to the President of the Health Sciences Centre. After retiring, she moved with her husband to Richmond, British Columbia in 1985.
She was actively involved in Winnipeg’s Icelandic community, serving as President of the Winnipeg Icelandic Saga Dancers and helping to establish the Scandinavian pavilion at Folklorama. She also participated in the city’s Ukrainian community through her work as secretary of the Women’s Auxiliary at Holy Family Home and her involvement in her husband’s dance group, the Meros Leckow Ukrainian Dancers. She was a founder of the Community Folk Arts Council of Winnipeg and of Folklorama. She was a founding member of St. Stephens Lutheran Church in Winnipeg.
She died at Richmond, British Columbia on 28 February 2002.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 5 March 2002.
“They will never be forgotten,” Winnipeg Free Press, 31 December 2002, pages A8-A9.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 21 December 2020
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