Sesselja (Hreindís) Sigmundsdóttir (5 July 1902 - 8 November 1974) was a noted Icelandic pioneer in the fields of pedagogy and the care for the mentally disabled and founder of the Sólheimar community. After her training in education in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and

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, where she was inspired by

Rudolf Steiner Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (; 27 or 25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century ...

, Sesselja returned to Iceland with the plan of establishing a self-sustaining community based on the anthroposophist philosophy. Here she would offer shelter and education to disabled and neglected children. At the age of 28, she acquire some land in a remote valley with its own hot spring and with the help of her family and friends built a farmhouse and named it Sólheimar - ''home of the sun''.

The 2002 stamp

She has been recognised with a postage stamp issued in 2002 by Íslandspóstur. The stamp has a portrait of Sesselja and a picture of Sólheimar (Value 45 00 Scott 965).jaysmith.com
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An image of the stamp

Sources

*Michaelsdóttir, Jónína (1990) “Mér leggst eitthvað til:Sagan um Sesselju Sigmundsdóttur og Sólheima” Relief fund of Sólheimar

References

1902 births 1974 deaths 20th-century Icelandic people People from Hafnarfjörður {{Iceland-bio-stub