Fredie Blom

Fredie Blom was a South African claimed supercentenarian. He claimed to have been born on 8 May 1904, which would have made him 116 years old when he died of natural causes on 22 August 2020. While Blom had a South African identity card listing his birth date, Guinness World Records never verified the claim. He was known for regularly smoking, and was reportedly the oldest person in the world after Violet Brown, a Jamaican, died at 117 years old on 15 September 2017.
Blom was born in Adelaide, Eastern Cape, and while he was still young moved to Cape Town. A significant part of his family died in the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918.
Blom spent most of his life working as a Black labourer in the construction sector and on a farm during the apartheid period. He initially worked as a farm worker in Cape Town before joining the construction sector. He was illiterate and never attended school during his childhood. However, he could count.
Blom worked installing 'vibracrete' walls, a type of concrete, retiring from that job after he was over 80 years old. His 116th birthday during the COVID-19 pandemic was widely covered. He married and had three children, before dying on 22 August 2020 at Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town.