Laura Adams Armer was born on January 12, 1874, in Sacramento, California. Her family moved to San Francisco when Armer was young, and she attended public and private schools there until the age of sixteen, when she was forced to continue her schooling at home because of ill health. Because San Francisco was an ethnic melting pot, Armer became infatuated at a young age with the various customs and traditions to which she was exposed.

In 1893 Armer enrolled at San Francisco's California School of Design and studied art under Arthur Matthews, a teacher and mentor who advised her against formalized systems of academic training. In 1902 she married Sidney Armer, a fellow artist who also studied under Matthews. The Aimers' only child, Austin, was born in 1903, and Armer dedicated much of the next twenty years to being a mother and a homemaker.

In 1923, accompanied by Paul Louis...