Shirley Isabelle Theresa Bernadette Bottolfsen (12 February 1934 – 24 December 2021) was an Irish humanitarian activist based in Bodø, Norway. For over forty years she raised money to help the poor.

Biography

Bottolfsen was born in

County Tipperary County Tipperary () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary (tow ...

Munster Munster ( or ) is the largest of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the south west of the island. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" (). Following the Nor ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

, on 12 February 1934 as the eldest of five children in a Catholic family. She immigrated to Bodø in 1956 with her first husband, a Norwegian sailor. He died at sea a few years later, leaving her with two young children. In 1983 she remarried to Per Bottolfsen, a dentist. Bottolfsen worked with the

Salvation Army The Salvation Army (TSA) is a Protestantism, Protestant Christian church and an international charitable organisation headquartered in London, England. It is aligned with the Wesleyan-Holiness movement. The organisation reports a worldwide m ...

and the municipality, but also as a one-person fundraising group. Her primary fundraising method was to stand for hours in the ''Glasshuset'' (glass house) covered section of the pedestrian precinct in central Bodø with a collection bucket; she also ran a summer lottery. she had raised 7 million kroner. She was a benefactor to a children's home in

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

. She raised several hundred thousand kroner for the poor and elderly in

Porsanger Municipality Porsanger (; ) is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Finnmark Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Lakselv. Other villages in the municipality include Børselv, Brenn ...

; when honoured by the municipality in 2009, she donated the monetary award in the form of a 70-person coffee service and tablecloths. She delivered food to needy people's homes in Bodø six days a week, and gave Christmas gifts to the poor every year starting on 22 December. In 2004 she donated security alarms to elderly people in Bodø and then protested the municipality's requiring service fees from those people. In 2012 she raised money for some

Roma Roma or ROMA may refer to: People, characters, figures, names * Roma or Romani people, an ethnic group living mostly in Europe and the Americas. * Roma called Roy, ancient Egyptian High Priest of Amun * Roma (footballer, born 1979), born ''Paul ...

families to return home to

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

, but felt misused when they returned to

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

. For her volunteer and humanitarian work, she was awarded the

King's Medal of Merit The King's Medal of Merit (Norwegian: ''Kongens fortjenstmedalje'') is a Norwegian award. It was instituted in 1908 to reward meritorious achievements in the fields of art, science, business, and public service. It is divided in two classes: gold ...

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

in 2005. The same year, the Norwegian TV company TV 2 made a documentary about her called ''Julenissen kommer fra Irland'' (Santa comes from Ireland). In 2014, she received an international humanitarian prize from the

Lions Club Lions Clubs International, is an international service organization, currently headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois. , it had over 46,000 local clubs and more than 1.4 million members (including the youth wing Leo clubs, Leo) in more than 200 ge ...

; the local Lions Club leader had sought the award for her for over twenty years. She was also awarded the Progress Party's John Ingolf Alvheim Prize in 2014. She features in the music video for the song "Mirage" by Heyerdahl. Bottolfsen had lived in the same house in Bodø since 1977. Her husband died in 2012; the following year, a group of volunteers repaired her house as a thank you to her. However, since she was having a rental flat created without building permission, the municipality ordered all work to stop. She died in Bodø on 24 December 2021, at the age of 87.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bottolfsen, Shirley 1934 births 2021 deaths Irish emigrants to Norway People from Bodø People from County Tipperary Recipients of the King's Medal of Merit in silver