Born: 9 August 1738, Switzerland
Died: 11 December 1815
Country most active: Switzerland
Also known as: Anna Schulthess
The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
Anna Schulthess was born in Zurich. She was the only daughter; there were five sons. Her father was a merchant who traveled in his youth in Germany, Holland and France. The mother was the daughter of a military officer, as evidenced in her strict discipline in the household. Religion was practiced in the home, and the daughter had a good, practical schooling. She kept the books in order for her father. Through his connections she got a taste of travel. Johann Kaspar Bluntschli, a fine, cultured theological student, and a great patriot, was especially fitted to inspire Anna Schulthess with a love of humanity. Bluntschli also knew Heinrich Pestalozzi, the educational reformer and writer, whose educational methods are used today. A serious illness overtook young Bluntschli. At his death bed Anna met Heinrich Pestalozzi. Out of this meeting, grew a fine friendship and a great love. Anna’s parents objected seriously. Anna’s letters to Heinrich (1768 — 1770) have been published. Her clothes, her piano and her bank book were all she was allowed to take along when she married Pestalozzi and went to live with him and his mother in Miiellingen. The birth of their little son brought her parents to an understanding. The land that Pestalozzi bought with borrowed money was not paying. He took in about twenty orphans and started his school. In 1780 he was forced to give up the school. There is a well known picture of Pestalozzi, showing him surrounded by the poor emigrant orphans he took from Nidwalden in 1798. In heavenly pity, Pestalozzi and Anna cared for these forsaken, starved children, who had deteriorated into mere animals because of their frightful experience during the French Revolution. With the new century, a new hope arrived for her husband; his educational ideas began to bring results. In her diary were joyful notations. Her only ambition was to see her husband succeed. Heinrich said he saw a sacred light in her eyes — the eternal, God-like spark of hope. In the spring of 1815, on Mrs. Pestalozzi’s return to Castle Iferdon, from a visit to their former home, a festival welcome was accorded her. During that summer she worked incessantly with her husband, in the interest of his school. On the 11th day of December, after a few days illness, Anna Pestalozzi folded her industrious hands for the eternal rest.