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IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE Voh. XXVIII, 1921 
war. He was married August 16, 1872 to Miss Sophia Alt, and 
came to America, October 29, 1873. 
The first seven years after coming to this country were spent 
in practicing his profession at Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, St. 
Cloud, Minnesota, Lincoln, Nebraska, and Guttenberg, Iowa. 
He went to Elkader, Iowa, in 1879, and remained there about 
six months; then for some time he lived in Fountain City and 
Ea Crosse, Wisconsin, and Garnavillo, Iowa. In January, 1888, 
he returned to Elkader where he practiced till his death, August 
3, 1909. 
Dr. Gmelin became an American citizen in 1884, receiving his 
naturalization papers in Sterns County, Minnesota, September of 
that year. To him and his wife, who is still living, and is spend- 
ing her declining years with her youngest son in Elkader, were 
born three sons: Robert, who died at the age of eight; Max, born 
at St. Cloud, Minnesota, in 1875 and now located at Clinton, 
Iowa, where he teaches music in Wartburg College ; and Henry 
C., born at Guttenberg, Iowa, in 1877, and now in the job-print- 
ing business in Elkader. 
• The following appreciation of Dr. Gmelin is from the columns 
of the Register and Argus: “Dr. Gmelin was of a high type as 
to mind and character, always a student, he was a lover of nature, 
of science, of literature and of music. The flowers were his 
friends ; he loved them and he knew every wild flower of the 
woods and fields and what healing or poisonous property it had. 
During his later years chess became the recreation of his active 
mind, the complex problems of that game affording him keen en- 
joyment. 
In religion Dr. Gmelin was a Protestant. He was of a retiring 
disposition, and instead of the noise and bustle of the streets, 
preferred that close communion with nature in forest and field 
and garden, which occupied much of his time when he was not 
busy in his profession. He loved gardening very much, and by 
judicious planting, provided his family with an abundance of 
fresh vegetables throughout the growing season.’’ ' 
The name Gmelin is a celebrated one in the annals of German 
science, several generations of the family having been prominent 
in botany, chemistry, medicine and theology. A large number of 
them devoted their lives to botany, either as collectors, teachers 
or in research work. Among these may be mentioned George 
John Gmelin who studied and collected Siberian plants from 1733- 
1743 upon which is based his Flora Sih erica, published in 1747- 
