Harry Weidner worked on road crews as part of WPA and made bootleg liquor.

[2] Weidner's mother, Almeda Hughes, who only had a fourth grade education, taught him his multiplication tables before he went to school.

[2] Weidner's youth included hunting and fishing with his father, which provided still life subjects for his early artwork.

De Francesco was instrumental in Weidner's admission to the Reading Museum drawing classes while he was still in high school.

[6] Weidner got odd jobs at the school including working for the English gardener mowing lawns, weeding, cleaning out the swimming pool, and doing dishes.

In a 1986 interview with David R. Brigham,[10] Weidner said that he created drawings in the margins of the booklets that the children could color in.

[11] Finally, he worked in the WPA Graphics Arts Workshop (Print Section) in Philadelphia with Dox Thrash, Michael J. Gallagher and Hugh Mesibov.

During this time Weidner got special permission to paint pictures of men working on the docks at the shipyard.

[3] Also in 1944, Roswell and Doris Weidner bought a farm outside Philadelphia in Christiana, PA with the money he saved while working at the shipyard.

The farm and surrounding area including the Mercer's Mill Covered Bridge were frequent subjects of Weidner's art in the 1940s and 1950s.

[3][23][24] Until the mid-1950’s Roswell Weidner was content to paint in the style of his early teachers at the Academy that included Henry McCarter, George Matthews Harding, Daniel Garber, Francis Wayland Speight [Wikidata] and Joseph Pearson Jr.[3][7] He described himself as a Jack-of-all Trades since he was proficient in landscape, portrait, figure and still life painting.

His work became more ambitious in scale and incorporated the Oriental concept of space while retaining Western form of modeling, light and perspective.

Weidner also drove his emerald green Ford van to Maine to paint views of oceans waves crashing against the shore.

At his campsite, deep in the Wharton State Forest, he found solitude where he could work undisturbed from morning until dusk, following the changing colors and light of the seasons.

The dominant element in his work continues to be the intensity and vibrancy of his colors - strong violets, blues and greens.

To a larger extent than before, the quality of the artist's own reactions is now felt, as he goes about finding his inspiration in the outer aspects of nature.

In this show, particularly in the pastels with the softer, quieter range of hues, Roswell Weidner can be appreciated as the fine landscapist he is.

[3] Marilyn Kemp Weidner founded the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) in 1977 in Philadelphia, PA, with the help of her husband.