Born: 12 June 1827, Switzerland
Died: 7 July 1901
Country most active: Switzerland
Also known as: Johanna Heusser
The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
Johanna Heusser was born in Hirzel. Her father, Dr. Heusser, was acconscientious physician ; her mother, a careful housewife of a bright and happy disposition. The town of Hirzel is lavishly enriched with nature’s gifts. The inhabitants are simple and happy folk, whose children were the playmates of the young Heussers. Her early teaching was carefully guided, as both pastor and teacher were the friends of her family. After finishing the grammar grades, Johanna went to Zurich, hungry for knowledge, filled with the ambition and energy to learn everything possible.
In 1852 she was married to the Attorney Spyri. Three years later a son was born to them. The education and training of his brilliant mind were her constant attention. In the midst of his studies with a promising career before him, he sickened, suffered untold agonies of pain and died. In the same year her husband died, broken-hearted. The only aid in her great sorrow was the pursuit of a literary career. From her mother she had inherited a poetic vein, and though she was now almost fifty years old, she began to write to still the great longing in her heart. Her knowledge of the people, of the folk, the middle-class citizen and the aristocrat, her thorough understanding of their joys and sorrows, her clear vision of their wishes and their faults, served her well in her stories that are spell-binding from cover to cover. The best known and exquisite is a tale called Heidi. This, translated, has traveled far and has brightened many hours for young and old.