Shirley Bottolfsen
Born(1934-02-12)12 February 1934
County Tipperary, Munster, Irish Free State
Died24 December 2021(2021-12-24) (aged 87)
Bodø, Nordland County, Norway
NationalityIrish, Norwegian dual citizenship
Occupationphilanthropist
MovementSalvation Army

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, Munster, Ireland, on 12 February 1934 as the eldest of five children in a Catholic family.[1] 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.[2]

Bottolfsen worked with the Salvation Army and the municipality, but also as a one-person fundraising group.[3] 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.[2] As of 2005 she had raised 7 million kroner.[4] She was a benefactor to a children's home in Lithuania.[2] She raised several hundred thousand kroner for the poor and elderly in Porsanger; when honoured by the municipality in 2009, she donated the monetary award in the form of a 70-person coffee service and tablecloths.[5] She delivered food to needy people's homes in Bodø six days a week,[1][6] and gave Christmas gifts to the poor every year starting on 22 December.[4] In 2004 she donated security alarms to elderly people in Bodø and then protested the municipality's requiring service fees from those people.[7] In 2012 she raised money for some Roma families to return home to Romania, but felt misused when they returned to Oslo.[8]

For her volunteer and humanitarian work, she was awarded the King's Medal of Merit in silver in 2005.[4] The same year, the Norwegian TV company TV 2 made a documentary about her called Julenissen kommer fra Irland (Santa comes from Ireland).[4][9][10] In 2014, she received an international humanitarian prize from the Lions Club; the local Lions Club leader had sought the award for her for over twenty years.[3][11] She was also awarded the Progress Party's John Ingolf Alvheim Prize in 2014.[12] She features in the music video for the song "Mirage" by Heyerdahl.[13]

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.[14] However, since she was having a rental flat created without building permission, the municipality ordered all work to stop.[15] She died in Bodø on 24 December 2021, at the age of 87.[16]

References

  1. 1 2 Håkon Jacobsen (12 February 2014). "Her danser Shirley i Glasshuset: I dag fyller Shirley Bottolfsen 80 år. 'Få har gjort mer for Bodø enn henne', sier ordføreren" (in Norwegian). NRK.
  2. 1 2 3 Roy-Arne Salater (19 November 2009) [18 November 2009]. "Engelen fra Bodø" (in Norwegian). TV 2. Archived from the original on 19 November 2009.
  3. 1 2 Lise Forfang Hagen (30 March 2014). "Shirley Bottolfsen fikk internasjonal veldedighetspris" (in Norwegian). NRK.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Alene for de ensomme". Avisa Nordland (in Norwegian). 15 December 2005 [22 November 2005].
  5. ↑ "Shirley Bottolfsen donerte kr 10 000 til Porsanger kommune" (in Norwegian). Porsanger kommune. 30 March 2009.
  6. ↑ Kari Skeie (4 May 2011). "Her kjører hun mat ut til fattige bodøværinger" (in Norwegian). NRK.
  7. ↑ Tore John Andreassen (9 December 2004) [8 December 2004]. "165 må betale for trygghet: Shirley Bottolfsen vil også i dag protestere mot egenandel på trygghetsalarmen". Avisa Nordland (in Norwegian).
  8. ↑ Susanne Lysvold (23 September 2012). "'Spinnvilt og ufint av Bottolfsen'" (in Norwegian). NRK.
  9. ↑ "Julenissen fra Irland". Avisa Nordland (in Norwegian). 28 December 2005 [27 December 2005].
  10. ↑ "Slik hyller de Shirley". Bodø Nu (in Norwegian). 12 February 2014.
  11. ↑ "Shirley Bottolfsen fikk internasjonal veldedighetspris - Lions Club Bodø Bodin" (in Norwegian). Lions Norge. 1 April 2014.
  12. ↑ Erik Tørrissen (4 May 2014). "Shirley Bottolfsen fikk Alvheims ærespris" (in Norwegian). Progress Party. Archived from the original on 29 November 2014.
  13. ↑ "Her debuterer Shirley i musikkvideo". Avisa Nordland (in Norwegian). 27 December 2012.
  14. ↑ Thor Harald Henriksen (28 August 2013). "I alle år har Shirley hjulpet andre - nå får hun hjelp". Verdens Gang (in Norwegian).
  15. ↑ Jan Eskil Severinsen and Aleksander Ramberg (9 September 2013). "Shirley: 'Jeg er veldig langt nede nå': Kommunen stanser alt arbeid hos Shirley Bottolfsen - da hun ikke hadde søkt om å få bygd utleieleilighet". Avisa Nordland (in Norwegian).
  16. ↑ Skjelvik, Sondre (24 December 2021). "Shirley Bottolfsen har gått bort". NRK (in Norwegian Bokmål). Retrieved 24 December 2021.
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