Birthday Astrid Qvist is Finland’s oldest man – Sunday’s 110-year-old woman’s theory of the secret of longevity makes health enthusiasts startled

Finland the oldest man Astrid Qvist was born on March 6, 1912 in the village of Töjby on the Swedish-speaking coast of Ostrobothnia. The girl was the third in the family. No one guessed that the youngest in his family would sometimes be the oldest in Finland.

Qvist has speculated that the secret of a long life was that he got enough butter and meat to eat as a child. Genes can also have an effect. Her older sisters lived between the ages of 104 and 102.

For the first hundred years of his life, Qvist lived in his birthplace in Töjby, but now he receives a journalist and a photographer in a nursing home in the center of Närpiö. Qvist’s hearing, vision, and strengths are impaired, but the sense of style holds. She is wearing an aniline red, draped dress and a cross necklace around her neck. The hair is tiptop.

The reflection on dressing for the big holiday started even before Christmas.

“Astrid hasn’t worn pants in her life,” Qvist’s grandson, a 61-year-old from the U.S. who arrived at his grandmother’s birthday party Ruth Melander says.

On Sunday, his actual birthday, Qvist plans to wear a red dress. The outfit also includes a white lace collar.

Childhood memories more than a hundred years ago are bright. The way the cows were driven seven miles to the island during the summer, from where the milk had to be carried on foot to the home farm, and how a family of 13 children living in the village washed their laundry in a pit dug into the ground.

Later, Qvist’s father bought a bicycle to visit Vaasa. The daughters were strictly forbidden to ride a bike, but when the opportunity finally came, it obviously could not be resisted.

The memory of riding a forbidden bike still makes Qvist laugh. Fortunately, Dad was kind.

Qvist attended elementary school for four years. He was then needed for the work at home. Childhood meant work.

The school had 47 students in the same classroom, and Qvist laughs out loud as he recalls the boys ’fights. The teacher was harsh.

“Discipline and order! We were taught that, ”says Qvist.

She speaks in a thin voice in the thick dialect of Närpiö by her niece Ulla Mangs translates into Swedish that the journalist understands.

Elementary school also visited a son whose father had left for America. From there, the father sent his son packets of clothing every year. The arrival of the packages ended at the penitentiary.

With her son Qvist married at the age of 19 in the parsonage in 1931. Astrid and Einar Qvistin English Translation: Harry was born in the same year. Daughter Viva came into the world two years later.

The coast of Ostrobothnia has a long tradition of departure. The sea has connected the world. Qvist’s older sister moved to the United States in 1937, followed by daughter Viva in the 1950s, and the boy also spent long periods behind the Atlantic.

Qvist himself first visited the United States perhaps sometime in the late 1950s. He doesn’t remember the exact time, but he did. First by ship to Gothenburg, Sweden, and from there to New York for nine days.

“The waves were so big. The ship pained them up and then down again, ”says Qvist.

Finally, the skyline of Manhattan rose in front. What was it like to see it for the first time?

“It can’t even be described,” Qvist says.

Stockholm had also felt great about the country girl. New York.

110 years during which the world has changed, many times, but still many things remain the same. Now Närpiö is home to fathers who have moved elsewhere and send gifts to their children in distant homelands.

Qvist has seen two major pandemics. He remembers how a Spanish disease killed villagers in Töjby more than a hundred years ago.

Qvist has never just talked about the wars he has experienced, his niece Mangs says, and relatives have not now told him about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That would be worrying in vain, especially under such a celebration.

When Qvist was under school age and Finland was still a Grand Duchy of Russia, Russian soldiers were stationed in the village of Töjby. One night, two of them came to Qvistie and demanded to be allowed to put their belongings in the family’s closet. The family emptied the locker, the soldiers put their belongings in the locker, locked it, and took the key.

“It’s his first memories,” Mangs says.

Later, the soldiers and family became friends. Soldiers used to bake bread in the mornings and leave it behind the door.

Tungt och svårt, hard and hard, in those words Qvist describes his long life. It’s a little hard to believe because he laughs a little at a time and a twinkle in his sense of humor flashes in his eyes.

But of course, in the long run, there is also room for a lot of grief. In the late 1960s, Qvist’s son had returned from the United States to help on his parents ’farm. He was only in his forties when he died in the sauna of a heart attack. Qvist’s wife died soon after.

Farming had to be given up, but Qvist stayed on the farm.

The daughter later returned from the United States to help her mother, but help was short. The daughter contracted a memory disorder and now lives at the age of 89 in the same nursing home with her mother.

hero starts to get tired, and it’s time for the last question. It’s personal, as the author of this story is seventh to be pregnant. When a child is born, he is the youngest person in Finland for a short time. What would Finland’s oldest person want to say to Finland’s youngest?

Qvist does not give advice to your baby. She addresses her mother.

“You have to take good care of him and teach life.”

For who knows, maybe he will remember his childhood in 2132.