Anna Clemenc

Annie Klobuchar graduated from the eighth grade at a school operated by the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company.[4][6] She then began working with a local church giving aid to crippled miners and assisted her family financially by doing laundry.[4] Because of her 6-foot-2-inch (1.88 m) height, Clemenc was commonly known as "Big Annie" and less commonly as "Tall Annie".[7]

At age eighteen, Anna married a Croatian miner, Joseph Clemenc. The only description of Joseph came from Anna's brother Frank, who stated that Clemenc was 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) tall and "quiet and mild-mannered."[8] Following Joseph's repeated physical abuse of Anna and marital discord related to Joseph's alcoholism, the couple divorced around 1914.[9]

In February 1913, Clemenc spearheaded the formation of the Women's Auxiliary No. 15 of the Western Federation of Miners in Calumet.[4] On July 23, a miners' strike was called in Michigan's Copper Country.[10] Clemenc frequently led marches in support of the miners wearing a plain gingham dress and carrying a large American flag on a ten-foot pole.[11] In August, Clemenc led the funeral procession for Alois Tijan and Steve Putrich who died in the Seeberville Affair.[12] On September 10, Clemenc and five other women stopped a man from going to work, whom they mistakenly believed to be a non-striker, and were arrested after fighting with deputies.[13]

Clemenc was elected president of the auxiliary by December 1913.[14]

Five months into the strike, Clemenc and the Women's Auxiliary planned a Christmas party to be held at Italian Hall in Calumet on December 24.[13] About 500 children and 175 parents were in attendance in the second-floor hall when a false cry of "fire" was heard, leading to a stampede down the main staircase in what became known as the Italian Hall disaster.[15] Over 75 died, most of them children.[16][17] Carrying her flag, Clemenc led the funeral procession for the victims.[18]

Clemenc carrying her flag and a head shot

In January 1914, Clemenc served a ten-day jail sentence for previously assaulting a non-striking miner.[19] In February and March, she went on a lecture tour of the Midwest to raise funds for survivors of the Italian Hall disaster and to encourage workers to unionize.[20]

After the tour, she moved to Chicago and married Frank Shavs. At the age of 26, she gave birth to her only child, Darwina, who later lost her left arm in an automobile accident.[21] Frank became a "drunkard and a wife-beater".,[22] and the couple was divorced. In 1936, she married Andrew Robleck; two years later, this marriage also ended in divorce.[23]

For a time Anna worked two jobs making hats,[24] Little else is known of her later life. She died of cancer in Chicago in 1956, at the age of 68.[3][22]