Anna Weber

Life

Weber was born June 3, 1814 in Earl Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to an Old Order Mennonite family of Swiss descent. She was the fifth of ten children born to Johannes Weber and Catherine Gehman. Though she was more widely known as Anna, she was also sometimes called "Nance" and she is recorded as "Nancy Weber" in "A Biographical History of Waterloo Region" by Ezra E. Eby.

In 1805, Anna's great-great-grandfather, Henery Weber, purchased over 3,000 acres of land in the historic "German Company Tract" of Waterloo County. Weber emigrated there with her family in 1825 and they prospered as farmers. At the age of 19 she became a deacon in Martin's Meeting House, a local Mennonite church.

Weber was noted for her strangeness and rebellious nature by those who knew her.

Art

As a young person, she learned the traditional art of needlework and produced decorative embroidered samplers and show towels. She also produced stuffed animals and hooked mats. She was likely introduced to frakture at an early age. In the early 19th century, fraktur art was commonly found in many areas of Pennsylvania. Several pieces have been retained by family members dating as far back as 1784, including an illuminated Spiritual Labrynth by the renowned Pennsylvanian artist Heinrich Otto. In addition, Fraktur writing was customarily taught in local Mennonite primary schools. The local frakture art style, known as the Earl Township school, is characterized by the use of a two-headed bird motif and took the form of vorschriften, gaudily decorated calligraphy inscribed in gothic German script. The local schoolmaster at this time, Mr. Altsdorf, was reported to produce very beautiful works of vorschriften.

By the age of 40, Weber began working with the Fraktur motifs she became known for. One of her earliest documented art is illustrations she added to her songbook in 1866. Most of her work through the 1870s and 1880s were gifts for birthdays and special occasions. While traditional Fraktur focuses on text with some decorative embellishment, Weber's work is characterized by "imaginitive visual expression". She filled the page with depictions of birds, animals and flowers with only a dedication, signature and date inscribed below. Her artwork was heavily influenced by Mennonite themes such as the Tree of Life. According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Weber was "the most original and prolific of Ontario's fraktur artists", which was particularly notable given the paucity of female fraktur artists.