Magnús Jónsson, a retired principal, and Sigrún Jónsdóttir, a former teacher, celebrated their 70 years of marriage on Tuesday, a platinum anniversary. They are the fifth Icelandic couple alive today to have reached this milestone.
From Hornafjördur where Jónsdóttir grew up. Photo by Geir Ólafsson.
“We haven’t thought about it much,” Jónsdóttir told Morgunbladid, adding that there is little one can do to celebrate such an anniversary. “Except maybe say ‘thank you’ if there is a god. We have been well and are well.”
The couple live at the retirement home Grund in Reykjavík. “We like living here. The people are very kind and friendly,” Jónsson said.
They met at the Teachers College where a friend of Jónsson’s asked him to give Jónsdóttir tutoring lessons. “I taught her mathematics so that she could be admitted to the school,” he recalled.
“I had some lessons with him, that is true,” she confirmed. “I was never good at math and knew I had to practice it. But he was very stubborn about getting paid.”
“I was rewarded one kiss but there could have been two,” Jónsson explained, adding that their number has grown through the years. “But I got the woman—the most beautiful woman in the world, as I have said more than once.”
Jónsson is 95. He was raised on the island Aedey in Ísafjardardjúp in the West Fjords but Jónsdóttir, who is 93, grew up in Hornafjördur in the southeast. They were married during World War II, on September 13, 1941. They have two children, Jón and Gyda.
ESA
