Truman G. Yuncker papers

T. G. Yuncker (1891-1964) was a taxonomic botanist whose field was the Piperaceae, especially the Peperomia and Piper genera. He described 839 new species, 211 new varieties and 25 new forma in the Piperaceae. He wrote the treatment of that family in almost every regional flora published during his lifetime. His early studies were on the genus Cuscuta in which he described 67 new species and 39 new varieties.

Yuncker was head of the Dept. of Botany and Bacteriology at DePauw University from 1923 until his retirement in 1956. Concurrently, he was curator of the DePauw Herbarium, acquired by NYBG in 1987, from 1919-1964.

Yuncker was a botanical explorer who held the position of Associate Botanist at the Bernice P. Bishop Museum from 1941-1964. He was responsible for the first Floras of Niue Island and the Tonga Islands. He also compiled floristic treatments of the Manua Islands, and of large areas of Honduras. His Piperaceae of Brazil was published posthumously.

Truman George Yuncker was born March 20, 1891 on a farm near Carson City, Michigan. When he was 13 the family settled in Lansing. His father became ill and Yuncker had to leave school to support the family; taking up work in the trolley barns. Soon he became a conductor, attending secretarial school at night. In 1907 he entered Michigan Agricultural College (Michigan State University) as an engineering student. After 2 years he was forced to leave again due to family financial problems. He worked as a secretary for the Durant-Dort Carriage Company in Flint.

It was during this period that he met Ethel Burnett Claflin and became secretly engaged to her. Ethel encouraged Yuncker to return to college and then in an extremely unusual move for that era, entered Michigan State along with him, delaying marriage until both had graduated. They married in 1915, after Ethel's graduation and a one-year assistantship for Truman at the University of Nebraska under Charles E. Bessey. They moved to Indianapolis where he was teaching at the Emmerich Manual Training High School.

In 1916 both Yunckers enrolled at the University of Illinois. Ethel received her M.A. in dietetics and Truman completed his Ph.D. under William Trelease, undertaking a revision of the North American and West Indian species of Cuscuta. Eventually he would take up Trelease's study of the Piperaceae, completing his Piperaceae of Northern South America after Trelease's death.

During WWI the two moved to Washington, D.C. where Truman served as a bacteriologist with the Army Medical Corps. Ethel worked as a dietician with the Food Administration.

In 1919, the new Ph.D. took up an appointment as Assistant Professor of Botany and Curator of the Herbarium at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. The Yunckers remained in Greencastle for the rest of their lives. Their two children were born and raised there, Betty-Jane in 1920 and Barbara Ann in 1921. By 1921, he had been promoted to full professor and to head of the department in 1924. He became one of the most outstanding teachers and administrators of his generation. More than 60% of his students went on to earn advanced degrees.

The children safe with grandparents, the Yunckers began their botanical explorations in 1926 with an extended trip to European herbaria for a world survey of Cuscuta.

In 1932 Yuncker was awarded a Yale-Bishop Museum fellowship for a one year sabbatical at the Bernice P. Bishop Museum. Ethel Yuncker took over his duties as department head, teaching some courses as well. At the height of the Depression, she made it possible for Yuncker to devote himself to his studies without undue economic hardship to the family. In 1939, the whole family went to Hawaii for the summer. Truman went on to Niue and Samoa for fieldwork on his floras of those places. He was forced to use military transport in this sensitive area, soon to become a front in WWII. Other explorations were a survey of the Tonga Islands in 1953-1954, the study of the flora of Jamaica through a Fullbright and a study of Brazilian Piperaceae, 1957-1962, under an NSF grant. Yuncker studied not just the flora but the activities of the people of those places and recorded his observations in his correspondence and notes.

Following the death of William Trelease in 1946, he was invited to the University of Illinois to complete Trelease's unfinished work on the Piperaceae of Northern South America. This involved a complete revision and editing of Trelease's notes. All 675 photographs in the work were taken and prepared by Yuncker. The work has become a classic.

Yuncker's last major work, The Piperaceae of Brazil, ( 1972-1975) was completed with the help of Ethel Claflin Yuncker and published and distributed to the scientific community by her. Her work on it was recognized in many quarters from the Bishop Museum to the Smithsonian Institution.

Both Ethel and Truman were active in Greencastle civic life for their entire lives. Ethel held office in the D.A.R. on a state level. She was national president of Phi Omega Pi. She often went by her maiden name. Truman served for years as the honorary forester of Greencastle. He was active in the Kiwanis Club. Both Yunckers belonged to the Freemasons.

Yuncker officially retired from DePauw in 1956. He became Emeritus and remained curator of the herbarium until his death in 1964. At that time it was renamed the T.G. Yuncker Herbarium by its new curator, Winona Welch. In 1987, as Welch's ability to care for it became compromised, the Herbarium was sold by DePauw to NYBG. Separate Brittonia festschrifts, edited by Dr. Patricia K. Holmgren were prepared in Yuncker's and Welch's honor. The Yuncker volume is Brittonia 41(3), July-Sept., 1989.

In 1966, after Truman's death, Ethel moved to Asbury Towers, a retirement community she had helped to plan. Her apartment was on the same floor as Dr. Welch's. In Dr. Yuncker's memory, she donated a solarium, whose plaque reads "Scientist and Teacher, Jungles and the South Seas were his workrooms, DePauw and Greencastle his home."

Ethel Burnett Claflin Yuncker died on his birthday, March 20, in 1981. Betty-Jane Yuncker married Robert Lee and had three children. Barbara Yuncker had a distinguished career as a medical journalist in New York City.