You have probably known her face your entire life without knowing her name, but today is a day to celebrate the original Gerber baby, Anne Turner. Anne is celebrating her 93rd birthday, which is a feat just about all of us admire.
Gerber kicked off festivities with a sweet note on Instagram. A photo of Anne was captioned: “For over 90 years, it’s been our pleasure to welcome countless babies to our ever-growing Gerber family. Our dedication to each and every generation of little ones has long been part of our heritage, and we’ll always take time to celebrate a true classic.”
The story of how Anne became the face of Gerber is pretty cute. It turns out that her neighbor, Dorothy Hope Smith, submitted a charcoal sketch of baby Anne in the 1928 contest that would eventually make her face famous. Smith told Gerber that the sketch wasn’t finished, but that she would happily finish it up if they were interested.
It turns out the judges loved the image just as it was, and began putting Anne’s face all over their products, where it would stay for decades. Anne’s identity was a secret until it was finally revealed in the 1970s.
After her identity was unveiled in 1976, People interviewed Anne about her unusual dose of fame. She was modest, saying, “It’s not anything I did myself,” a fact that isn’t incorrect. Anne went on to say that “I’m more proud of having earned my master’s degree after 13 years as a housewife, of having worked my way up to chairman of the English department of a large high school, and of my 29-year marriage.”
Anne is said to “love babies,” and she delighted in meeting the first Gerber baby with Down syndrome, Lucas Warren, in 2018.