Iowa City Press-Citizen/Professor Bohumil Shimek, Noted S. U. I. Botanist, Passes At 75

Professor Bohumil Shimek, Noted S. U. I. Botanist, Passes At 75

Photo by Kadgihn	Press-Citizen Engraving
PROF. BOHUMIL SHIMEK

HAD DEVOTED LIFETIME TO NATURE STUDY

---

Death Comes Following
Illness of Month;
Funeral Will Be
Tuesday

---

Prof. Bohumil Shimek, 75 noted University of Iowa botanist, who devoted an entire lifetime to the study of the great out-of-doors, passed way at his home, 529 East Brown street, about one o’clock this morning.

Professor Shimek who had been devoting his time in recent years to research in the botany department and serving as curator of the University of lowa herbarium, had been ill for about a month, suffering from influenza and complications of heart disease which resulted in his death.

Born in County

A lifelong resident of Johnson County, Professor Shimek was born on a farm in Jefferson township near Shueyville. As a boy and later as a young man earning his way through the university, Professor Shimek learned to know every bend and eddy of the Iowa river, carrying on an extensive collection of botanical, zoological and geological specimens.

Later he was engaged in engineering work near Shueyville, surveying many of the roads in Jefferson township and a road and a hill there being named in his honor. A member of the lowa City school board in the 1890’s, the Shimek grade school in the north part of Iowa City was named after Professor Shimek. For many years, he had served as chairman of the bi-partisan committee which selected candidates for the Iowa City school board each year.

Honored in 1932

At the University of lowa commencement exercises in June 1932, Professor Shimek was honored for his 50 years’ teaching service in this community. His teaching started in 1882 when he was an instructor of the Czech language in the elementary school, and from 1890 until the present he had served with the university.

He was a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and member of the Geological Society of America, Iowa Academy of Sciences, of which he had served as president; Botanical Society of America; Ecological Society of America; Washington Academy of Science, and Sigma XI.

Professor Shimek was married to Anna Konvalinka of Iowa City on June 22, 1886, Mrs Shimek passing away on April 21, 1922. In 1924, he was married to Margaret Meerdink Shimek of Muscatine.

Besides the widow, he is survived by four daughters, Miss Ella Shimek at home, Mrs. P. J. Hanzlik of San Mateo, Calif., Mrs. M. O. Hanzlik of Cedar Rapids, and Mrs. George Krepelka of Stacyville, Iowa; a son, Mr. Frank J. Shimek of Kingston, NY.; and five grandchildren.

Funeral services will be held Tuesday afternoon at 2:30 o’clock at either Beckman’s funeral home or the Masonic temple. The Rev. Elmer E. Dierks, pastor of the Baptist church will be in charge, and Dr. Charles A. Hawley of the university school of religion, will participate in the service. Masonic burial services will be in Oakland cemetery.

Born on Farm

Bohumil Shimek was born June 25, 1861, on a farm southeast of Shueyville, the son of Francis Joseph and Maria Theresa Shimek. His father was an artisan, born in Kastalovice, Bohemia, March 21, 1821, and his mother was born in Vamberk in 1819. They came to America with a son and daughter and settled in the northern part of Johnson County.

Subsequent misfortune and its attendant privation caused Bohumil Shimek’s mother’s death in 1866, and permanently undermined his father’s health. Poverty often deprived young Bohumil of needed books and clothing, but in the field and stream the boy learned to understand and love the creatures of the wilderness. As he drew ever closer to nature, he drifted farther away from unstatisfying play with his schoolmates, who must have seemed to him to have eyes that did not see and ears that could not hear. He saw wild nature by day and no less by night, when conditions favored and he heard and knew by voice the native birds in season and at night the song of the the bobolink.

Enters S. U. I.

Years passed and the boy was promoted from grade school to city high school. With the first four-year class he was graduated from the Iowa City high school in 1878, and in the same year entered the University of Iowa as an engineering student. Here, as in the public schools, he was wholly dependent on his own efforts for his education. Before he finished college his father, sister and brother died, leaving him completely without family ties or home life.

During his college career Shimek was employed as a surveyor by the B. C. R. & N. railroad. In 1883 he was graduated with the degree of civil engineer and later served two terms as county surveyor of Johnson county. But Shimek’s engineering career was destined to be brief because of his abiding interest in nature.

In 1885 young Shimek accepted a position as science teacher in lowa City high school. He resigned in 1888 to assume an instructorship in zoology at the University of Nebraska, a position which he held until 1890, when he returned to the University of Iowa as an instructor in botany.

Rise Is Rapid

He rose rapidly to professor of botany, head of the department research professor, curator of the herbarium and director of Lakeside Biological laboratory. His botanical work was accorded international recognition when he was invited to the University of Prague as exchange professor of botany in 1914. There he received the honorary degree of doctor of philosophy.

His most important work as a naturalist was in Iowa, where since boyhood he made observations on plants in all seasons of the year under varying situations and in different localities.

In 1901 Professor Shimek took the first class of students to Lake Okoboji, thus giving the first practical impetus to Lakeside laboratory.

Receives Recognition

Some of Professor Shimek’s highest honors came to him in recognition of his geological work. In 1904 he was a member of the Iowa state geological board. In 1911 he was chairman of the geological section and vice president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 1914 he was honorary chairman of the geological section of the International Scientific congress in Europe.

Early in 1915 Professor Shimek became president of the Iowa branch of an organization known as the Bohemian National Alliance|, which gave financial as well as moral support to the struggle for independence. As soon as the struggle for independence began Profesşor Shimek was ready to carry the message from man to man and there was hardly a settlement of Bohemians in middle-west where he did not lecture, encouraging his countrymen to carry the struggle of the Allies through to success. He carried his message outside the borders of his home state, and became a member of the executive council of the Czecho-Slovak National Alliance and presided at the national council of the organization at Chicago.

In recognition of his services in the nationalist movement and in education, the Czecho-Slovakian government officially presented a special medal of honor to Professor Shimek in 1927 through the councilor of its legation in Washington.