Husband Elmer Stanley Hader
Queer Places:
1413 Montgomery St, San Francisco, CA 94133
55 River Rd, Grand View-On-Hudson, NY 10960
Berta
Hoerner Hader (August 1, 1890 – February 6, 1976) and Elmer Stanley Hader
(September 7, 1889 – September 7, 1973) were an American couple who
jointly illustrated more than 70 children's books, about half of which
they also wrote. They won the annual Caldecott Medal for The Big Snow
(1948), recognizing the year's "most distinguished American picture book
for children". They received the Caldecott Honor Book Award for
Cock-a-doodle-doo in 1940 and The Mighty Hunter
in 1944.
Berta Hoerner was born in San Pedro, Coahuila, Mexico, where her parents
Albert and Adelaide unsuccessfully tried to grow cotton with Albert's brother.
The family moved 100 km to the east, to the resort town of Parras, Mexico,
when Berta was three, then soon-after to Amarillo, Texas, where her father ran
a grocery store. Her father died when Berta was five, and the family soon
moved to the northeast of the United States. Berta, perhaps inspired by her
mother's colorful sketches of Mexican life, took art classes and read
extensively while still in elementary school, winning literary and artistic
prizes for her work. The family again moved in 1909, this time to Seattle,
Washington. While Berta's mother worked for Charity Organization Society and
Washington's Home, Berta continued painting and reading, and eventually
attended the University of Washington School of Journalism (1909–1912). She
also apprenticed at Western Engraving Company, where she learned printing
design, fashion design, illustration, and printing skills. Berta's supervisor,
Eva Shepard, moved to San Francisco, and handed over her fashion work in
Seattle to Berta. When Ms. Shepard then took a position in New York, Ms.
Shepard asked Berta to take over her free-lance fashion illustration business
in San Francisco. Berta agreed and, to further her training, she spent the
summer of 1915 attending art school in Carmel, California. In the fall she
moved to San Francisco, took over Eva Shepard's fashion illustration work, and
attended the California School of Design, where she studies from 1915-1918.
While in San Francisco, Berta befriended Rose Wilder Lane (daughter of
then-unknown writer Laura Ingalls Wilder), with whom she later rented a
Telegraph Hill studio (1413 Montgomery Street). Berta first met her future
husband Elmer at this studio. Berta had also befriended
Bessie "Mother" Beatty
during her time in San Francisco. After Ms. Beatty's adventures covering the
Russian Revolution (The Red Heart of Russia, 1918), she invited Berta
to New York City to do fashion design illustration for McCall's, where
Ms. Beatty had become an editor.
When Elmer and Berta met in San Francisco, they had both been part of a
broad network of artists and intellectuals in the area. They became good
friends, and, rather than return to San Francisco, Elmer went directly to New
York when he was demobilized in February 1919. Berta was working for i>
McCall's.. The two married in July of that year, then lived briefly in
Greenwich Village. Seeking a more rustic setting, they left the city to rent
the Lyall Cottage in Grand View-on-Hudson, a small town in rural Rockland
County, New York on the west bank of the Hudson River. This would become the
area where they would spend the rest of their lives. Their home, which took
more than twenty years to construct, was largely built by the Haders and their
friends, and the house became an art project in its own right. Elmer went so
far as to extract the stones used to build the house from the earth himself.
The Haders had a son in the early 1920s, Hamilton (named after the author
Hamilton Williamson), who died from meningitis not long before he turned
three. They retreated to a friend's home in Maine to grieve and heal. They
returned to New York to continue work on their home and to continue their
artistic careers contributing artwork to many magazines, creating broadsides,
pamphlets, painting miniatures (Berta) and portraits (Elmer).
The two used their talents and Berta's connections to prepare children's
sections for i>Good Housekeeping, McCall's, Pictorial Review,
Asia, Century, and The Christian Science Monitor. They
did pictures and cut-outs, often featuring children dressed in national
costumes. In Berta and Elmer Hader's Picture Book of Mother Goose, the
couple collated pen-and-ink and color drawings they had done for Monitor
and Good Housekeeping to great acclaim. When the US Postal Service
dis-allowed the sending of magazines with cut-out segments in 1926, the Haders
switched gears, gaining a contract with MacMillan for a series of children's
books. They began writing the stories for some of the books in this period.
Demand for their product soared, and they worked incessantly from 1927–1931,
illustrating, in some cases writing, producing, and helping to sell
thirty-four titles. They stayed busy for the rest of their lives, producing
another seventy or so books before they retired in 1964. One book in
particular, Billy Butter (1936), so impressed writer John Steinbeck
that he requested Elmer Hader do the cover to The Grapes of Wrath
(1939). Hader eventually did covers for two other Steinbeck works, East of
Eden (1952) and The Winter of Our Discontent (1961).
The Haders were early champions of conservation, animal protection, and
pacifism. This made its way into their work, particularly with titles such as
The Runaways (1956) and Two Is Company, Three's a Crowd (1965?).
In the early 1950s, Berta became a community activist, ignited by the
seemingly lost cause of having the location of the proposed Tappan Zee Bridge
moved to a less sensitive area than its planned path through her village.
Though The New York Times accused her of "blocking
progress," the New York State Thruway Authority eventually relented,[2]
and the massive 4,88 km-long bridge was built several kilometers to the north
at Nyack, where the bridge still stands today.
Berta and Elmer travelled extensively in Mexico, Jamaica, and the far
northeast of the United States, some of which made its way into their work.
'The Story of Pancho and the Bull with the Crooked Tail" (1942), Jamaica
Johnny (1943), and Tommy Thatcher Goes to Sea (1950) are all
informed by their travels. Elmer died on his 84th birthday at his home in
Grand-View-on-Hudson. Berta remained at the home until shortly before she died
1976 February 6 at the age of 85.
My published books:
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berta_and_Elmer_Hader