Helge Ellingsen Waagaard was born at Vågård farm at Lunder parish in Norderhov (now Ringerike) in Buskerud, Norway. Waagaard participated in the brief campaign in Østfold during the Swedish–Norwegian War (1814). In 1812, he married Anne Eriksdatter Kihle (1786-1863) with whom he had four children. Waagaard died at Vågård during the spring of 1817 having never fully recovered from wounds he suffered during the campaign in 1814.