Paul O. Schallert Collection

Paul Otto Schallert was born on March 5, 1879 to William Prederick Schallert and Fredericke Florenine in Watertown, Wisconsin. Although his parents were both born in different parts of Germany, both moved to the United States at some point in their lifetime. William Schallert worked on a farm in Rock Prairie, New Janesville, Wisconsin, where he met Fredericke Florenine, who was serving as a nurse girl on a neighboring farm. Once they married, the couple moved to Watertown, Wisconsin and joined the congregation as a mission started by Reverend Kaltenbrunnen.

Paul O. Schallert spent the first seven years of his childhood on the farm he was born at. In 1893, at the age of fourteen, Schallert went to Chicago with his brother Will to visit his sister Emma and went to World's Colombian Exposition on World's Fair. He spent an entire week at the Fair to see all the attractions. By the end of the trip, his brother Will wanted to stay in Chicago to work in a store as clerk and Paul wanted to go to a better school. With his mother's insistence, Paul's father sold the farm and bought an old run-down cheese factory that belonged to a local capitalist. Paul then was going to village school under a teacher by the name of Seeley during the years of 1893 to 1895. Seeley influenced Paul to become very much interested in advanced arithmetic, history, and book-keeping. He also advised him to save money and go to college someday. With that advice, Paul continued to work at the carpenter trade for Brother Herman beginning at fifty cents a day and last year for a dollar a day, saving all his money in order to go to college.

Schallert earned a B.A. and B.S. from Marion College in Marion, Indiana, then graduated from the University of Illinois, College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1904 with M.S. and M.D. degrees. In 1904, Paul also married Grace Jackson on May 16, 1904 and they had four children together. He utilized his physician and surgeon titles in a property he'd purchased, called "David Reid House". Here he set up an office, and later joined the army as a contract surgeon. Schallert's interest in botany grew from an unknown origin, but he taught the subject at Salem College and collected many plant specimens from Southern and Western States. At the age of 90, Schallert died on January, 1970 in Freehold, New Jersey.

While he was serving for the United States Army as a medical doctor, he became member of the North Carolina State Medical Society, the Sullivant Moss Society, the American Asiatic Society, the Boy Scouts of America, and the North Carolina Academy of Science. In 1930's he gave his collection of hepatics (liverworts) to Duke University and the correspondence with American botanists is kept in Botanical Research Institute in Forth Worth, Texas.