Career
Born in the rural area of Hirzel, Switzerland, as a child she spent several summers in the area around Chur in Graubünden, the setting she later would use in her novels. In 1852, Johanna Heusser married Bernhard Spyri. Bernhard was a lawyer.
While living in the city of Zürich she began to write about life in the country. Alone, she devoted herself to charitable causes and wrote over fifty more stories before her death in 1901. She was interred in the family plot at the Sihlfeld-A Cemetery in Zürich.
An icon in Switzerland, Spyri's portrait was placed on a postage stamp in 1951 and on a 20 CHF commemorative coin in 2009. The 1830 story is titled Adelaide - das Mädchen vom Alpengebirge—translated, "Adelaide, the girl from the Alps". The two stories share many similarities in plot line and imagery.
Spyri biographer Regine Schindler said it was entirely possible that Johanna may have been familiar with the story as she grew up in a literate household with many books.