Queen Sonja has lost her sister-in-law. Lis Haraldsen, has died at the age of 87. The death was announced by the Haraldsen family in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten.
Lis Ingeborg Elder was born in Denmark on 22 August 1933 and married businessman, Haakon Haraldsen, the older brother of the future Queen Sonja, in 1957. Haakon Haraldsen was the godfather of Princess Martha Louise. Queen Sonja is the now only remaining member of her sibling group. The queen had two more siblings; her brother, Karl Herman Haraldsen, who died at the age of seven in 1936 and her sister, Gry Henriksen, who died in 1970.
Lis Ingeborg and Haakon Haraldsen were admired and respected, together with the rest of the Haraldsen family, for how they coped with being part of the extended royal family. They have been described by their family and the press as deeply loyal to the royal family and understanding of their role. They have never given any interviews. Lis Ingeborg and her husband, the queen’s brother, had a good relationship with the royal family. They celebrated Christmas as guests of King Harald on several occasions.
Lis Ingeborg and her husband Haakon Haraldsen had three children, Karl Otto, Lis and Marianne, and she became a grandmother of six and the great-grandmother of one. Haakon Haraldsen died in 2016, aged 95, while his widow died on 13 July 2021. Her funeral will take place in Holmenkollen Chapel in Oslo on July 23rd 2021. Lis Ingeborg was living in a villa in central Oslo when she died.
The Haraldsen family has always stayed away from the limelight. However, they have been familiar faces at family events and major anniversaries since Sonja became Norway’s crown princess on her marriage to Harald in 1968.
