Berta Hoerner was born in San Pedro, Coahuila, Mexico, where her parents Albert and Adelaide unsuccessfully tried to grow cotton with Albert's brother. The family moved 100 km to the east, to the resort town of Parras, Mexico, when Berta was three, then soon-after to Amarillo, Texas, where her father ran a grocery store. Her father died when Berta was five, and the family soon moved to the northeast of the United States. Berta, perhaps inspired by her mother's colorful sketches of Mexican life, took art classes and read extensively while still in elementary school, winning literary and artistic prizes for her work. The family again moved in 1909, this time to Seattle, Washington. While Berta's mother worked for Charity Organization Society and Washington's Home, Berta continued painting and reading, and eventually attended the University of Washington School of Journalism (1909–1912). She also apprenticed at Western Engraving Company, where she learned printing design, fashion design, illustration, and printing skills. Berta's supervisor, Eva Shepard, moved to San Francisco, and handed over her fashion work in Seattle to Berta. When Ms. Shepard then took a position in New York, Ms. Shepard asked Berta to take over her free-lance fashion illustration business in San Francisco. Berta agreed and, to further her training, she spent the summer of 1915 attending art school in Carmel, California. In the fall she moved to San Francisco, took over Eva Shepard's fashion illustration work, and attended the California School of Design, where she studies from 1915-1918. While in San Francisco, Berta befriended Rose Wilder Lane (daughter of then-unknown writer Laura Ingalls Wilder), with whom she later rented a Telegraph Hill studio (1413 Montgomery Street). Berta first met her future husband Elmer at this studio. Berta had also befriended Bessie "Mother" Beatty during her time in San Francisco. After Ms. Beatty's adventures covering the Russian Revolution ("The Red Heart of Russia", 1918), she invited Berta to New York City to do fashion design illustration for "McCall's", where Ms. Beatty had become an editor.