HISTORY, SHE WROTE
Rosalie Yoakam
August F. Foerste was born in Dayton on May 7, 1862. His parents were August J. and Louisa Foerste. When Foerste reached adulthood, he turned a childhood passion for geology into a successful career. Michael R. Sandy, of the department of geology at the University of Dayton, in his guidebook wrote of Foerste, “He earned the reputation in Europe and America as one of the leading paleontologists and geologists of his time.”
Foerste’s early interest in geology was developed as he wandered the woods and swamps of Oakwood in his youth.
He graduated from Central High School in Dayton and then worked as a teacher in a one-room school in Centerville.
During this time, he explored a quarry on the Allen property near Centerville, collected fossils and studied the exposed strata.
After three years, Foerste left his teaching job and entered Denison University in Granville, Ohio. In 1887, he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree. He next attended Harvard where in 1888 he obtained a masters of arts degree and in 1890 a doctorate. His Harvard years were followed by studies in Heidelberg, Germany, and Paris, France.
In the summers, during school breaks, he served as an assistant in the U. S. Geological Survey. He took part in geological surveys in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Canada.
After obtaining his higher education, Foerste returned to Dayton. He taught physics at Steele High School for 38 years. The school was located at Monument Avenue and Main Street beside the Great Miami River. Foerste kept his manuscripts and field notes and paleontology collection at the school building in wooden boxes. The 1913 flood carried the boxes away and left them downstream. His friends helped recover the boxes.
In 1915, Foerste published a book titled “Geology of Dayton and Vicinity.” It contains detailed geology information of the area.
Foerste retired from teaching in 1932.
Following retirement, he conducted research in invertebrate paleontology at the United States National Museum at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and was appointed associate in paleontology there in 1932.
Foerste died on April 23, 1936, and is buried in Woodland Cemetery.
In 2003, Gregory A. Schumacher reported in the Ohio Geology, a publication of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological Survey, his delight in locating several boxes of unpublished manuscripts and field notes made by August Foerste. The boxes were stored at the Smithsonian Institution Archives. In one notebook, he discovered Foerste had produced the first geologic maps of the Serpent Mound Disturbance and these maps were used by John Bownocker when he compiled the 1920 Geologic Map of Ohio.
Contact this columnist at rdyoakam58@yahoo.com.
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