R. M. Wilke
(1862-1946)
Robert Max Wilke was born in Germany on July 30, 1862; he and his wife Elizabeth were married in Germany in 1888, and emigrated to America with their four children in 1904. Wilke had first visited America in 1884, perhaps examining the possibilities for someday making a new life in California. The family settled near Mayfield in Santa Clara County, California and took up fruit farming. Wilke was an ardent gem and mineral collector, and had worked as a mining engineer in Germany; he took every opportunity to visit the working pegmatite mines in southern California to collect specimens. He began advertising "beautiful California minerals" (including tourmaline, beryl, kunzite and others) for sale in The Mineral Collector in 1906, giving his address as 2627 Piedmont Avenue, Berkeley, California. In March 1907 his ad offered "very fine Tourmalines of various colors, Kunzites, Beryls, Topazes, Gold Quartz, elegant crystallized Native Copper from Arizona," giving his address as Box 312, Palo Alto, California. In November 1907 he offered fine specimens of benitoite and neptunite. In 1909 he visited the Tourmaline King mine and purchased some of the largest and finest matrix tourmaline specimens ever found there; some of these he kept for his personal collection and some he sold to major museums. On the 1910 cansus he is listed as a "farmer and mineral collector."
In 1914 Wilke purchased the famous Tourmaline King mine in San Diego County and carried out a very thorough exploration for more tourmaline, but unfortunately found very little. Nevertheless, Wilke had by this time become well known as a reputable mineral dealer in San Diego County. He continued to advertise periodically, in Rocks & Minerals as late as 1932. Sometime in the 1930's or early 40's he closed out his business and sold off his remaining stock of minerals. Western Mineral Exchange of Seattle announced in August 1944: "We have purchased...the last eleven hundred pounds of the stock of Mr. R.M. Wilke, of Palo Alto, and his collection of duplicates. Mr. Wilke was famed for the excellence of his material and the preciseness and accuracy of his identification." He died on September 16, 1946.
In recognition of his efforts to save California pegmatite specimens, the new mineral wilkeite was described and named by Eakle and Rogers in 1914, but in 1982 was unfortunately discredited as P-rich fluorellestadite.
References:
Federal Census records, 1900 and 1930.
California Death Index
|
 |
To contribute
more information
please E-mail us at:
minrecord@comcast.net
[Citation format for this entry:
WILSON, Wendell E. (2010)
Mineralogical Record
Biographical Archive, at www.mineralogicalrecord.com.]
|
|
|
Click on thumbnail picture to see larger image.
Number of labels found: 5 | Labels being viewed: 1 to 5
|
 |
|
 |
40 x 47 mm |
|
|
|
 |
48 x 75 mm |
|
|
|
 |
41 x 61 mm |
|
|
|
 |
45 x 70 mm |
|
|
|
 |
44 x 69 mm |
|
|
|
|
