Herman Silas Pepoon, medical doctor and talented classroom teacher.

Many talented and dedicated educators came to the teaching profession after having first experienced success in some other career. This is true of Herman Silas Pepoon, a medical doctor who gave up his practice to became a high school science teacher.

Herman was born on January 21, 1860, in Warren, Joe Daviess County, Illinois. Herman earned his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Ubana-Champaign in 1881. After he earned this degree, he studied medicine, earning his medical degree in 1883 from Hahnemann Medical College of Chicago.

After earning his MD, Herman established a medical practice first in Nebraska, and later in Illinois. After ten years, in 1892, he gave up his medical practice and accepted a job as a science teacher at Lakeview High School, a public high school located on the north side of Chicago, Illinois. He taught there from 1892 to 1930. In addition to his classroom duties, Herman taught courses in botany for young people and local teachers at Chicago’s Academy. He also led field trips and gave public lectures. A prolific writer, in 1927 Herman published An Annotated Flora of the Chicago Area, an acclaimed identification source for local plants. He also published a botanical teaching manual entitled Studies of Plant Life: A Series of Exercises for the Study of Plants in 1900 with co-authors Walter R. Mitchell and Fred B. Maxwell. Over the years, Herman published numerous articles on botany, forestry, and ecology in respected scientific journals.

After he retired from teaching, Herman became a life member of the Chicago Academy of Sciences (CAS), which named him Honorary Curator of Botany for the institution in 1930. He also worked with the Illinois Natural History Survey helping with the collection and study of vascular plants.

This chalkboard champion passed away at the age of 81 on December 26, 1941. He is interred in Acacia Park Cemetery in Chicago.