Background

Bohumil Shimek was born on June 26, 1861, in Shueyville, Iowa, United States, to Maria Theresa and Francis Joseph Shimek, refugees from Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic), who emigrated to the United States in 1848 and settled on a small farm near Shueyville, north of Iowa City. Of eight children born to Frank and Maria, Bohumil was one of only three who survived to adulthood.

Education

Bohumil Shimek studied civil engineering at the State University of Iowa (now the University of Iowa ), where he received a Civil Engineering degree in 1883 and a Master of Science degree in 1902.

Career

Bohumil Shimek claimed to have begun earning his own keep at age 11, and he worked his way through college as a collector for botany, taxidermy, and zoology classes at the State University of Iowa (now the University of Iowa).

From 1883 to 1885 Bohumil Shimek worked as a surveyor, and from 1885 to 1888 he taught sciences at Iowa City High School and Iowa City Academy, a college preparatory school. From 1888 to 1890 he taught zoology at the University of Nebraska (now The University of Nebraska-Lincoln). In 1890 the Shimeks returned to Iowa City when he received an appointment as instructor of botany at the State University of Iowa. He taught botany from 1890 to 1931, serving as chair of the department from 1914 to 1919.

Bohumil Shimek served as president of the Iowa Academy of Science in 1904-1905, assisted the Iowa State Geological Survey from 1907 to 1929, and from time to time served as director of Iowa Lakeside Laboratory at Lake Okoboji.

Achievements

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  Shimek State Forest in southeast Iowa, two Iowa City schools, and the library at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory were named in his honor.
  
  Charles University in Prague awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1919 in recognition of his scientific contributions.
  
  His services to Iowa and education were memorialized by the Iowa legislature in a unanimous resolution of tribute, passed after his death. During his tenure at the University of Iowa, Shimek is estimated to have collected around 200,000 specimens of vascular plants, 5,000 bryophytes, and 2,400,000 specimens of mollusks.
  
  The Bohumil Shimek Environmental Educator Award was created in his honor.
  
  One of Shimek's best-known achievements was defining the term Nebraskan (a stratographic term for a layer under the Aftonian interglacial deposits) and identifying that loess is a product of wind rather than water.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Flora of Winneshiek County
  • The Ferns Of Nicaragua: An Account Of The Ferns Collected By The Nicaragua Botanical Expedition Of The State University Of Iowa In 1893
  • The Plant Geography Of The Lake Okoboji Region
  • Diary European trip

Membership

Bohumil Shimek was a charter member of the Iowa Park and Forestry Association as well as its successor, the Iowa conservation Association.

Bohumil Shimek was active in many cultural, fraternal, and civic organizations, serving multiple terms as an Iowa City alderman as well as on the boards of the Iowa City Public Library and Iowa City schools. During World War I, he traveled throughout the United States giving more than 200 public addresses on behalf of Czech freedom.

Connections

In 1887 Bohumil Shimek married Anna Elizabeth Konvalinka, and over the years the couple had five children. After Anna died in 1922, he married Marjorie Meerdink in 1924. No children were born of this union.

Father:

Francis Joseph Shimek

Mother:

Maria Theresa (Tit) Shimek

Spouse:

Anna Elizabeth Konvalinka

(d. 1922)

Spouse:

Marjorie Meerdink

Son:

Frank Shimek

Friend:

Tomas Garrigue Masaryk

References

• Hudson, D., Bergman, M., & Horton, L. (Eds.) The biographical dictionary of Iowa
  2009