Anna was born in Bingen am Rhein to Georg Schlaadt, from Kestert, and Christina Wambach, from Niederlahnstein. Her older brother decided "Schlaadt" should become "Schlatt" in America. Her parents owned a barge business, and transported items, including fruit and produce, along the Rhein River. Besides her older brother Anton being born in Bingen, her siblings Margaretha, Peter, and Helena were born in other towns along the Rhein River (Maggie in Koblenz and the younger siblings in Düsseldorf). She was one of 12 siblings, with many dying as infants or young children. One brother, Wilhelm, died in his early 20s before he could emigrate with his siblings. After her mother's death in 1880, she and her siblings went to live with her uncle Johann Wambach in Düsseldorf. In Düsseldorf, Anna worked as a cook for a wealthy family. Her older brother Anton was already working on ships, after which he decided to settle in Blue Island, which then was known for the truck farms outside of Chicago. Anton invested in the Chicago hog market and made enough money to send for his surviving younger siblings. They arrived in Chicago in 1889. A family story tells how they were given bananas to eat on the boat to America, but had never eaten the fruit before (or seen a banana). They thought the bananas tasted awful... They didn't know they had to peel the bananas before eating them! Anna met her future husband, Johannes Martin Schirrmacher, in Blue Island, where their three children were born. She became deaf as a young adult from a congenital bone growth in her ears, and never learned to speak English.

Anna was very sad when missing her family in Germany, so one day her daughter took her to see movies, while her sons took a trunk full of photographs and memorabilia from Germany to the city dump! She was told when she found out that she "must look to the future in America, not to the past." Of course, we would have loved to have seen those photographs today, but I guess they couldn't see that far into the future!

Her children were John Frederick Schirrmacher, Karl Albert ("Charles") Schirrmacher, and Louis Margaret Schirrmacher Dissmer. John and Charles later changed their surname to "Sherman."

The year of her birth is different in many records. According to her baptismal record, she was born in 1864, also on her grave marker.