Devoted Reykjavik Shop Owner Retires at 98

After four decades of selling bed-linen, shop-owner Jórunn Brynjólfsdóttir, who will turn 98 this summer, has decided to retire. Her shop, Verslun Jórunnar Brynjólfsdóttur, on Skólavördustígur in downtown Reykjavík, will now close.

“What I will do now is just keep on living my life until I leave this world,” Brynjólfsdóttir told Morgunbladid. “I’m very satisfied here at Grund [a retirement home]; it is a wonderful place to be in.”

Brynjólfsdóttir said it had not been difficult to say goodbye to her store for the last time on Tuesday. “I knew it was bound to happen. The store has been my life for such a long time, 40 years. I had come to terms with my decision.”

“I will always keep the store in my memories. I am happy and very grateful,” Brynjólfsdóttir said, adding that she would probably miss her customers more than they would miss her store. “Business has always been good and everything is so wonderful and precious to me.”

Brynjólfsdóttir was born on Hrísey island in northeast Iceland in 1910. For the last few years she has lived in retirement home Grund and worked in her store. She received a special acknowledgement from the Icelandic Association of Women Entrepreneurs (FKA) in 2002.
IcelandReview