God's Grace

Unofficial world's oldest man dies aged 116 in South Africa

Fredie Blom said earlier this year he had ‘lived this long because of God’s grace’

Fredie Blom celebrating his 116th birthday at his home in Delft, near Cape Town, earlier this year. Photograph: Rodger Bosch/AFP/Getty Images Agence France-Presse Sat 22 Aug 2020 19.00 BST

A 116-year-old South African man believed to be one of the world’s oldest people has died, his family said.

Born on 8 May 1904, Fredie Blom told Agence-France Presse this year that he had “lived this long because of God’s grace”. South African media have described Blom as “unofficially” the world’s oldest man.

Blom’s entire family was wiped out by the Spanish Flu pandemic

Seattle police wearing masks in December 1918*

when he was a teenager. But he survived and went on to raise the three children of his wife of 46 years, Jeanette, as his own, becoming grandfather to five over the years.

“Two weeks ago oupa (grandfather) was still chopping wood,” family spokesman Andre Naidoosaid, recalling the old man using a 4lb hammer. “He was a strong man, full of pride,” he added. But within three days, his family saw him shrink “from a big man to a small person”.

Blom was born in the rural town of Adelaide, near the Great Winterberg mountain range of South Africa’s Eastern Cape province. He died at Tygerberg hospital in Cape Town. Naidoo said his death was not related to Covid and was a “normal natural death”.