Else Reppen (14 November 1933 – 28 February 2006) was a Norwegian

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...

, Pentecostal and a strict advocate of temperance. During her lifetime she was well known of serving others and caring little for herself. In 1984, she founded "Action Poland" which later became known as "Friends of Poland". This is a small group of people that transports food, clothing and other necessities in a bus every September to institutions such as churches and orphan homes in Poland. From 1996 to 2005, she served as President of the Norwegian WWCTU, World's

Woman's Christian Temperance Union The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program th ...

Early years and marriage

Else Reppen was born in

Flekkefjord is a municipality in Agder county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Lister. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Flekkefjord. The villages of Sira, Gyland, Rasvåg, Kirkehavn, and Åna-Sira are lo ...

Vest-Agder Vest-Agder (; "West Agder") was one of 18 counties (''fylker'') in Norway up until 1 January 2020, when it was merged with Aust-Agder to form Agder county. In 2016, there were 182,701 inhabitants, around 3.5% of the total population of Norway. I ...

in southern

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

on 14 November 1933 to Nils and Sofie Staaby. They were a working-class family, her father being Flekkefjord's first typographer, her mother staying at home with 8 children. After having completed the obligatory primary education, which lasted for 7 years those days, she began working. In 1952, she married Magne Reppen (d. 1992), also of Flekkefjord. They became members of Pinsemenigheten Salen (a local Pentecostal congregation) early, as Else Reppen later explained it: "When we realized the importance of the Baptism of the Holy Ghost". Their first child, Sissel Reppen, was born a year later, in 1953. In 1960, Nils Terje Reppen was born.

References

Norwegian philanthropists 1933 births 2006 deaths Woman's Christian Temperance Union people 20th-century philanthropists People from Flekkefjord 20th-century women philanthropists {{norway-bio-stub