PROFESSOR AVEN NELSON.

PROFESSOR AVEN NELSON.
Professor Aven Nelson, educator, author, lecturer, now the president of the University of Wyoming at Laramie, was born in Lee county, Iowa, March 24, 1859 a son of Christen Nelson, a native of Norway, who came to the new world in 1845 and settled in Lee county, Iowa. He married Anne Evenson, who came from the land of the midnight sun in 1848. Their marriage was celebrated that year in Chicago and they at once removed to a farm in Iowa, taking up their abode in Lee county, where their son, Aven Nelson, in early boyhood attended the district schools. He afterward became a student in the Kirksville (Mo.) State Normal School, from which he was graduated in 1883 with the Bachelor of Arts degree, while in 1887 he received the M. S. D. degree. He further continued his education in Drury College at Springfield, Missouri, which conferred upon him the Master of Science degree in 1890. He next entered Harvard and within the classic walls of that old institution was accorded the Master of Arts degree in 1892. In 1904 the University of Denver conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and thus through university training he constantly broadened his learning, while private reading and study further promoted his efforts as educator, author and lecturer. His youthful experiences to the age of sixteen years were those of the farmbred boy, at which time he took up the profession of teaching in the district school, and through all the intervening years he has given his attention to educational interests. He was instructor in English and biology at Drury College from 1883 until 1885, was superintendent of the public schools at Ferguson, Missouri, from 1885 until 1887 and in the latter year accepted the position of professor of biology in the University of Wyoming, remaining a member of its faculty in that connection until 1915. Since the 1st of July of the latter year he has been professor of botany. He was acting president of the State University, in the absence of its president, from 1912 until 1917 and on the 15th of August of the latter year was given full charge as its president and has so continued. He has been a prolific writer on botanical, horticultural, agricultural and educational subjects. His writings include many miscellaneous papers in systematic botany, including many articles on new plants in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, in Erythea, a botanical journal published for a time at the University of California, in the Plant World, and in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington; besides these a series of papers issued under the name of "Contributions From the Rocky Mountain Herbarium," dealing with new western plants and containing revisions of certain genera; reviews of Rydberg’s Flora of Montana and Rydberg’s Flora of Colorado. Other papers are a nature study series which appeared in the Wyoming School Journal; a series of bulletins in the experiment station publications ; reports and bulletins in the publications of the State Board of Horticulture; miscellaneous papers in the Ranchman’s Reminder and in the Wyoming Farm Bulletin and others. He is the publisher of various books as well, including “An Analytical Key to Some of the Flowering Plants of the Rocky Mountain Region”; “Contributions to Our Knowledge of the Flora of the Rocky Mountains”; “New Manual of Rocky Mountain Botany”; and “Spring Flora of the Intermountain States.” Since 1905 Mr. Nelson has been secretary of the State Board of Horticulture and in 1893 he was in charge of the laboratories at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, while in 1904 he had a similar connection with the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. On the 1st of September, 1885, at Kilwinning, in Scotland county, Missouri, Professor Nelson was married to Miss Celia Alice Calhoun, a daughter of George C. and Mary J. Calhoun. Their children are: Neva Jean, who became the wife of Thomas B. Ford on the 8th of September, 1908, and is now living in Washington, D. C., where Mr. Ford is in the government service; and Helen Annette, who was married in December, 1914, to Dwight S. Jeffers, who is supervisor of the Arapahoe National Forest in Colorado. Professor Nelson is not a member of any secret organization but has done important public service as secretary of the building commission of the Carnegie Public Library of Laramie in 1903 and 1904 and as chairman of the building committee of the Methodist church of Laramie in 1904 and 1905. He is a member of the Methodist church, has been superintendent of the Sunday school for more than twenty years and was twice president of the State Sunday School Association. His scientific investigations and researches have done much to push forward the wheels of progress, bringing about a more thorough and comprehensive understanding of many botanical, horticultural and agricultural questions and problems, and his developing powers along these lines have placed him with the ablest scientists of the country.

Professor Aven Nelson, educator, author, lecturer, now the president of the University of Wyoming at Laramie, was born in Lee county, Iowa, March 24, 1859 a son of Christen Nelson, a native of Norway, who came to the new world in 1845 and settled in Lee county, Iowa. He married Anne Evenson, who came from the land of the midnight sun in 1848. Their marriage was celebrated that year in Chicago and they at once removed to a farm in Iowa, taking up their abode in Lee county, where their son, Aven Nelson, in early boyhood attended the district schools. He afterward became a student in the Kirksville (Mo.) State Normal School, from which he was graduated in 1883 with the Bachelor of Arts degree, while in 1887 he received the M. S. D. degree. He further continued his education in Drury College at Springfield, Missouri, which conferred upon him the Master of Science degree in 1890. He next entered Harvard and within the classic walls of that old institution was accorded the Master of Arts degree in 1892. In 1904 the University of Denver conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and thus through university training he constantly broadened his learning, while private reading and study further promoted his efforts as educator, author and lecturer. His youthful experiences to the age of sixteen years were those of the farmbred boy, at which time he took up the profession of teaching in the district school, and through all the intervening years he has given his attention to educational interests. He was instructor in English and biology at Drury College from 1883 until 1885, was superintendent of the public schools at Ferguson, Missouri, from 1885 until 1887 and in the latter year accepted the position of professor of biology in the University of Wyoming, remaining a member of its faculty in that connection until 1915. Since the 1st of July of the latter year he has been professor of botany. He was acting president of the State University, in the absence of its president, from 1912 until 1917 and on the 15th of August of the latter year was given full charge as its president and has so continued. He has been a prolific writer on botanical, horticultural, agricultural and educational subjects. His writings include many miscellaneous papers in systematic botany, including many articles on new plants in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, in Erythea, a botanical journal published for a time at the University of California, in the Plant World, and in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington; besides these a series of papers issued under the name of "Contributions From the Rocky Mountain Herbarium," dealing with new western plants and containing revisions of certain genera; reviews of Rydberg’s Flora of Montana and Rydberg’s Flora of Colorado. Other papers are a nature study series which appeared in the Wyoming School Journal; a series of bulletins in the experiment station publications ; reports and bulletins in the publications of the State Board of Horticulture; miscellaneous papers in the Ranchman’s Reminder and in the Wyoming Farm Bulletin and others. He is the publisher of various books as well, including “An Analytical Key to Some of the Flowering Plants of the Rocky Mountain Region”; “Contributions to Our Knowledge of the Flora of the Rocky Mountains”; “New Manual of Rocky Mountain Botany”; and “Spring Flora of the Intermountain States.”
Since 1905 Mr. Nelson has been secretary of the State Board of Horticulture and in 1893 he was in charge of the laboratories at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, while in 1904 he had a similar connection with the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis.
On the 1st of September, 1885, at Kilwinning, in Scotland county, Missouri, Professor Nelson was married to Miss Celia Alice Calhoun, a daughter of George C. and Mary J. Calhoun. Their children are: Neva Jean, who became the wife of Thomas B. Ford on the 8th of September, 1908, and is now living in Washington, D. C., where Mr. Ford is in the government service; and Helen Annette, who was married in December, 1914, to Dwight S. Jeffers, who is supervisor of the Arapahoe National Forest in Colorado.
Professor Nelson is not a member of any secret organization but has done important public service as secretary of the building commission of the Carnegie Public Library of Laramie in 1903 and 1904 and as chairman of the building committee of the Methodist church of Laramie in 1904 and 1905. He is a member of the Methodist church, has been superintendent of the Sunday school for more than twenty years and was twice president of the State Sunday School Association. His scientific investigations and researches have done much to push forward the wheels of progress, bringing about a more thorough and comprehensive understanding of many botanical, horticultural and agricultural questions and problems, and his developing powers along these lines have placed him with the ablest scientists of the country.