Anna Clemenc

Anna Klobuchar Clemenc
Photograph of Anna Clemenc in a newspaper publication on February 28, 1914
Born	Anna Klobuchar March 2, 1888 Calumet, Michigan, U.S.
Died	July 27, 1956 (aged 68) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Nationality	United States
Other names	"Big Annie"
Height	6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
Children	Darwina Shavs

Anna "Big Annie" Klobuchar Clemenc (March 2, 1888 – July 27, 1956; pronounced "Clements") was an American labor activist. Born in Calumet, Michigan, she founded and served as president of the local Women's Auxiliary No. 15 of the Western Federation of Miners and was an active participant in the Copper Country Strike of 1913–1914. She is an inducted member of the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.

Clemenc was born in 1888 in Calumet, Michigan, to George and Mary Klobuchar, the eldest of five children. Her parents were Mary (née Adam) and George Klobuchar, who, in 1890 or 1891 returned to Slovenia, where the youngest Klobuchar sibling, Mary, was born February 2, 1892. The family lived in George Klobuchar's home village of Dobliče near Crnomelj. Mary Adam Klobuchar was from Dolnja Paka, also near Crnomelj.

In the United States, George was employed in one of the Calumet and Hecla mines and Mary was a domestic worker.

Annie Klobuchar graduated from the eighth grade at a school operated by the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company. She then began working with a local church giving aid to crippled miners and assisted her family financially by doing laundry. Because of her 6-foot-2-inch (1.88 m) height, Clemenc was commonly known as "Big Annie" and less commonly as "Tall Annie".

At age eighteen, Anna married a Croatian miner, Joseph Clemenc. The only description of Joseph came from Anna's brother Frank, who stated that Clemenc was 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) tall and "quiet and mild-mannered." Following Joseph's repeated physical abuse of Anna and marital discord related to Joseph's alcoholism, the couple divorced around 1914.

In February 1913, Clemenc spearheaded the formation of the Women's Auxiliary No. 15 of the Western Federation of Miners in Calumet. On July 23, a miners' strike was called in Michigan's Copper Country. Clemenc frequently led marches in support of the miners wearing a plain gingham dress and carrying a large American flag on a ten-foot pole. In August, Clemenc led the funeral procession for Alois Tijan and Steve Putrich who died in the Seeberville Affair. On September 10, Clemenc and five other women stopped a man from going to work, whom they mistakenly believed to be a non-striker, and were arrested after fighting with deputies.