She was born as Mary Ann Weckman on August 3, 1921 in Akron, Ohio.[1] Her father Clarence Alexis Weckman (1896–1975) was from Ohio and of Alsace-Lorraine descent; her mother Loretta Laura (née Gorbach) Weckman (1895–1990) was from Berlin, Germany.[5][6] Her father was a self taught mechanic and inventor who invented a threading mechanism for rubber (sold to Goodrich), and her mother was a seamstress.[7] She began drawing at an early age.[7]
In May 1947, she was married to Samuel Scherr, an industrial designer and art collector who later served as director of the American Craft Council.[8][3][6] The couple had met in Akron and at the Cleveland Institute of Art.[6] Together they had three children, two sons and a daughter.[2][6]
In 1963, the United States Steel Company commissioned Scherr to create industrial-style stainless steel jewelry, which became a signature style.[1][9] In the early 1970s she began making jewelry with either self tracking or medical purposes, the early designs were called "trach necklaces", for people who had tracheotomy surgery the necklance would slip into place with a medical device and cover the surgical opening so the patient no longer felt a need to hide their neck.[10] She also designed a heart monitoring necklace; a bracelet that monitors the pulse rate and displays the results through a light-emitting diode; a pendant with a 10-minute supply of oxygen; a portable electrocardiograph necklace; and others.[10]
In 2020, Scherr had her first retrospective exhibition, All is Possible: Mary Ann Scherr’s Legacy in Metal, curated by Ana Estrades and held at the Gregg Museum of Art and Design in Raleigh, North Carolina,[11]
^ abcdeGoforth, Kathy (26 March 1978). "A Scherr Sampler". Newspapers.com. Ott Gangl (photographer). The Akron Beacon Journal. pp. 6–140. Retrieved 2021-06-12.