Swedish Dagny Carlsson, world’s oldest blogger, dies aged 109

Swedish centenarian had thousands of social media followers and regularly appeared on television

(The Guardian).- Dagny Carlsson, described as the world’s oldest blogger, who wrote about her life in Sweden based on the attitude that you should never think you are too old to do what you want to do, has died at the age of 109.

When she was 99, Carlsson attended a computer course. A year later, she started her blog where she called herself Bojan. Her friend Elena Ström wrote in an email to the Expressen daily that they had been “inseparable since 2011 when she became a student in one of my computer courses”.

Carlsson had thousands of social media followers and regularly appeared on Swedish television and radio shows. In March 2018, she met King Carl XVI Gustaf and his wife, Queen Silvia, at the royal palace in Stockholm. After Carlsson’s death on Thursday, the Swedish royals paid homage to her by posting a photo of their meeting on Instagram.Advertisement

On her blog, Carlsson described herself as “a tough aunt, who likes most things,” has a sense of humour and is “a little straightforward”. She posted photos of herself and said she had “always been curious”.

“Being straightforward is probably debatable. It’s easy to step on someone’s toes and I do not want to do that. But I definitely think you have to be true and honest,” she wrote on her blog.

Dagny Valborg Eriksson was born in Kristianstad, south Sweden, on 8 May 1912 – the same year that the ocean liner Titanic was sunk by an iceberg – the eldest of five siblings. After eight years at school, she took a job at a shirt factory where she worked for 20 years. She later worked at a corset factory north of Stockholm where she met her second husband at the age of 39. She eventually worked at the Swedish social insurance agency.

She continued to live independently until last year, when she moved into a retirement home. Her last blog post was on 28 January when she wrote: “Like a cat, I have at least nine lives, but I do not know what I should use so much of life for.” She was also looking forward “to celebrating my 110th birthday in May, preferably with a small party”.

TYT Newsroom