Combined age of oldest couple: 197
Trausti Magnússon, shoveling snow in his driveway. The picture was taken when he was 97. mbl.is/Golli
The oldest living couple in Iceland has a combined age of 197, according to Morgunblaðið. Trausti Magnússon celebrates his one hundredth birthday today, while his wife, Hulda Jónsdóttir, is 97. Their daughter, Vilborg, believes their old age is the result of their stoicism and regular meals.
“They’ve lived on this Icelandic food all their lives and eaten regularly,” she reports. Still, their habits might surprise you: “Dad used to smoke a lot, often as much as three packs a day, but he suddenly quit around the age of 40. Mom, on the other hand, smoked until she underwent heart valve surgery at 93. She was hospitalized for five days, and didn’t see the point in starting again after five days without smoking.”
Trausti grew up in Gjögur, the West Fjords, where he began working on a fishing boat with his father at the age of eight. He then moved to nearby Djúpavík at 18 and worked as a fisherman and skipper on several boats. While he was the skipper of the boat Harpa, Vilborg relates, “a boat stranded on the skerry in crazy weather. Dad was called out and went to the inner side of the skerry, where he received them as they came over it. There was no way to save them from the other side, due to the weather. Luckily, everyone was saved.”
Trausti and Helga moved to Sauðanes in Siglufjörður fjord, North Iceland, in 1959, where they would remain light house keepers for the next 39 years. For the first eight years, the place was not accessible by road. You could either walk there from Siglufjörður along treacherous trails in Strákafjall mountain, or go by boat, but landing a boat there was difficult.
Vilborg states that her parents would most of all like to be in Djúpavík, but they moved to Reykjavík 20 years ago. The plan is to travel to Djúpavík in a few days to celebrate the centennial.
Trausti is an outdoors enthusiast, and the two of them often participate in the roundup of sheep in the fall. Trausti is adamant about staying in shape.
When asked whether her father has any advice to give others, Vilborg quotes an Icelandic proverb, descriptive of moderation and contentment, “Use what you have at hand, and don’t think about that which is out of reach. He’s not preoccupied by things that aren’t there, but by what is available.”
