First SOS Mother turns 90

Maria Weber, the very first SOS Children's Villages mother is about to celebrate her 90th birthday - the same year that SOS Children celebrates its 60-year anniversary.

Maria Weber was born on 3 May 1919 in Deutschkreuz in the Austrian state Burgenland. After finishing school, the farmer's daughter moved to Vienna and became a parish nurse. She first found employment in Pfunds in Tyrol, which is where she first received mailings from Hermann Gmeiner and donated 3.60 shillings for the construction of Haus Weihnachten ("House Christmas"). "That means that, in a way, I laid down one of the foundation blocks for the very building I would later, in 1951, become an SOS mother in," she says.

In 1957, Maria Weber moved to the newly founded SOS Children's Village in Hinterbrühl close to Vienna, which was, at that point the fourth Children's Village in Austria. She lives there to this day, in the so-called "mother's house" for retired SOS mothers.

Maria Weber was an SOS mother for more than 20 years and retired in 1977. She raised 20 children and is still in contact with all of them regularly. She also enjoys frequent visits from her 36 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren! She will be celebrating with all the members of her very large family.

To read an interview with a current SOS Mother, click here