Former Icelandic Red Cross director Eggert Ólafur Ásgeirsson dies

Eggert Ólafur Ásgeirsson, a former managing director of the Icelandic Red Cross, has died at the age of 97, mbl.is reported.

Ásgeirsson grew up on Tjarnargata with his mother and graduated from Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík in 1949. He studied medicine at the University of Iceland from 1949 to 1953 before moving to Stockholm, where he completed a public health officer examination at Folkhälsan in 1955. He also completed a Swedish examination at the University of Iceland.

In 1955, he became a public health officer at the Reykjavik City Medical Officer’s Office. He served as managing director of the Icelandic Red Cross from 1969 to 1981, then ran his own consultancy until becoming office manager of the Association of Icelandic District Heating and Electricity Utilities from 1982 to 1995. He ended his working life as a project manager at Samorka from 1995 to 1999.

His surviving wife, Sigríður Dagbjartsdóttir, said he also served on numerous city committees and led the fundraising campaign for refugees, a joint project of the International Red Cross and the UN Refugee Agency, around 1970.

He was also among the students who honoured Halldór Kiljan Laxness at his hotel after Laxness received the Nobel Prize from King Gustav of Sweden in Stockholm.

Ásgeirsson and Dagbjartsdóttir married in 1962 and lived throughout their marriage on Bergstaðastræti in Reykjavík. They met while he was working as a public health officer and she was secretary to the director of the public health centre.

Dagbjartsdóttir described him as a devoted family man who always put his family first. She said he collected and published books of family letters, which are available digitally through the National Library, and edited and compiled material for Briemsættarskrá, published in 1990.

“He was basically writing all his life,” she said.

She also described him as sociable and loyal to his friends. For more than 25 years, he organised regular gatherings for his fellow graduates from Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík’s class of 1949.

Ásgeirsson and Dagbjartsdóttir had four adult children: Ingibjörg, Ásgeir, Dagur and Auður. They also have grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Ásgeirsson will be buried from Neskirkja church on September 18.