Franz Stelzhamer was born in 1802 in Gross-Piesenham in what is today Pramet. He made his literary breakthrough at the age of 35, with the poems Lieder in obderenns´scher Volksmundart (Poems in the Upper Austrian dialect). He met seamstress Barbara Reyss in Vienna. After their marriage, the Stelzhamers settled in Ried in 1845. Soon after, their daughter Carolina was born here. The family lived in extreme poverty. Franz was seldom at home, going on tours to sell his books. As a freelance writer he needed sponsorships and patrons. But Ried was not the right place for them. Shortly after his daughter Linchen died of an over-sized, inflamed heart on 24th November 1851 at the age of only 6, Franz and Betty Stelzhamer left Ried.

His Political Folk Songs were published in Linz and Ried in 1848. Stelzhamer continued to publish volumes of poetry in dialect and the two hexametre epics D´ Ahnl and Der Soldadnveder up until 1868. Thereafter he published prose and poems in standard German. Franz Stelzhamer left behind an important literary legacy. But some of his texts reflect the anti-Semitic tone of the times. Stelzhamer died in 1874 at the age of 72 in Henndorf am Wallersee.