Maria Hueber
Maria Hueber was a Tyrolean religious sister, a pioneer in educating girls in and foundress of a congregation of the Third Order of Saint Francis in Brixen.
Early life
Hueber was born to the Brixen tower watchman, Nikolaus Hueber, and his wife Anna Tapp in 1653. Nikolaus died when she was three months old, leaving Anna to bring three children up through her work as a seamstress and by caring for the sick. Anna taught Maria reading, arithmetic, and sewing.Hueber worked in several residences in Brixen from childhood to supplement her mother's income. She moved to Bolzano, Innsbruck, and then Salzburg in the 1670s, to work in several residences of lay and clergy alike, before her mother's ill health forced her to return home. In the course of her service, she struck acquaintances with many of the religious people she worked for, particularly with the Order of the Servants of Mary in Innsbruck. She corresponded often with several of them.
In 1679, she chose to join the Third Order of St. Francis. She led a religious life while also nursing her sick mother. Her mother died in 1696.
Religious community
Hueber's confessor, Isidor Kirnigl, had come across a community of religious sisters in Rome who were teaching poor girls. When he suggested that Maria attempt something similar in Brixen, she, along with her associate Regina Pfurner, started a congregation Franciscan tertiaries and opened a school for girls on 12 September 1700: the first such institution in Tyrol. The girls were taught reading, writing and sewing.Maria Hueber died in 1705, and was buried at the side entrance of the Poor Clares's church in Brixen.