Science Magazine in its current number tells in a most interesting way the story of Bohumil Shimek as professor of botany at the state university of Iowa. As Professor Shimek was born in Iowa and at his death last January had been a resident of the state for seventy-five years, his story is one Iowans are bound to be interested in. Probably the most interesting single event in the professor’s life was his escape with Thomas G. Masaryk, afterwards president of Czechoslovakia, when the Austrians tried to capture him as the war broke. Shimek and Masaryk were close personal friends. One of the stories the professor enjoyed telling was of his answer to Masaryk when the president outlined his program for a peaceable boundary line between Hungary and the new republic. Shimek’s comment was, “It is so sensible they will never do it.”
Here are a few paragraphs from the story of our notable Iowa scientist as told by W. F. Loehwing in Science.
Bohumil Shimek.
Professor Shimek was born in Shueyville, Iowa, on June 25, 1861, the son of Maria Theresa and Francis Joseph Shimek, political refugees who had immigrated to America from Bohemia in 1848. Professor Shimek’s youth and education were closely bound up with the University of Iowa, which he entered in 1878 as a student of engineering.
Professor Shimek’s academic rise was rapid, as he soon became professor of botany, head of the department of botany, director of the Lakeside Laboratory, curator of the herbarium and later research professor. The high esteem in which Professor Shimek was held personally and as an educator was attested by the testimonial celebration tendered him by the university and the state of Iowa at the time of his retirement in 1932, at which time he had completed a fifty-year teaching career.
Many of Professor Shimek’s highest honors came in recognition of his geological work. He was a member of the Iowa State Geological Board and in 1911 was chairman of the Geological Section and vice president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 1914 he was made honorary chairman of the Geological Section of the International Scientific Congress held in Europe as a tribute to his important contributions. The Geological Society of America had awarded him a research grant in 1936.
In 1901 Professor Shimek took his first class of students to Lake Okoboji, where in 1909 the Lakeside Laboratory was established.
Professor Shimek labored ardently in behalf of the independence of Czechoslovakia in 1918, and with his personal friend, Thomas G. Masaryk, the historian, he planned during the latter’s exile in America much of the strategy which finally resulted in Czech independence and Masaryk’s election as the first president of Czechoslovakia. As president of the Czechoslovakian Council of Higher Education from its very inception he contributed greatly to the establishment of American standards and ideals of higher learning in the now independent nation of his forbears. He was called to the Charles University of Prague, Bohemia, as exchange professor in botany in 1914 and was awarded the Ph.D. degree in recognition of his scientific contributions. In recognition of his patriotic services he was awarded a special Czech medal of honor in 1927. His services to the state and education were memorialized by the Iowa legislature in a unanimous resolution of tribute passed on Feb. 1, 1937.
Professor Shimek was long a leader in the educational development of the middle west. He served as a member of several school boards and other education organizations. He was president of the Iowa Academy of Science in 1904 and later president of the Iowa Society of Engineers. He was a member of the Botanical Society of America, Ecological Society, Washington and Iowa Academies of Science, Sigma Xi, national and state president of the Izaak Walton League, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Geological Society of America, Botanical Society of Bohemia and Natural History Society of Prague.
His passing is an irretrievable academic and civic loss to the state. He was the last of the elder statesmen of natural history in the middle west.
