Norway’s oldest man, Norwegian-American George Melford Nygaard, has died. He was 108 years and 109 days old.
“I do not want to think too much about being Norway’s oldest man. That is not a good thought,” he said to Glåmdalen when he took over the age record in early December last year.
George Melford Nygaard was born and raised in Benson County, North Dakota after his father emigrated from Western Norway to America in 1894. After a long life in Seattle, he and his wife Adele returned to Norway. They bought a house at Roverud and settled there.
Nygaard was remembered by the newspaper as a whimsical and humorous man who was very well-liked at Roverudhjemmet in Kongsvinger municipality in Hedmark where he lived the last seven years of his life.
He was sharp and quick to reply but was not a health fanatic. Nygaard said that tobacco and alcohol did not shorten his life.
“You do not have to live healthy to grow old, but it is important with a great humor,” he said to the newspaper a few months ago.
“If we are sad and sour, we are also angry with life itself, and then the meaning to life is gone,” he meant and thought he had lived a rich and happy life.
© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today