Maria Leer

With Stoffel Muller, a barge skipper, she founded Zwijndrechtse nieuwlichters, and along with assistance from Dirk Valk, a Waddinxveen bailiff.

She grew up in the orphanage for poor children in Edam and received some schooling to prepare her for a position as a domestic servant.

The income-pooling community aimed to "revive the apostolic communism practiced at the beginning of the Christian era".

After Josina died in 1848, Leer found shelter with friends, and helped the sick and invalid with homemade medicine.

At that time, she met the writer Louise Sophie Blussé, who chronicled Leer's memoirs and published them in 1892 under the pseudonym D.N.