She never married.

As a child, she was required to take care of her family’s 10-room house.

She was expected to keep house for her brothers long after they were all grown.

Her love of education and devotion to science would have been considered an unwomanly pursuit in her time.

Her family criticized her intellectual pursuits.

Nevertheless, she persisted.

Libbie Henrietta Hyman was born Dec. 6, 1888, in Des Moines. Her parents were Jewish immigrants.

Joseph Hyman was from a Polish village named Konin. His part of Poland had been taken over by Russia, and he left the area at the age of 14. He emigrated to London, where he worked as a tailor for a few years before coming to the United States.

Sabina Neumann came from Stettin, Germany. When she left her homeland, she came directly to Des Moines, where she lived with a brother. Libbie Hyman’s biography says, “He made a household slavey out of her and treated her roughly, after the best Prussian traditions.” Sabina found work keeping house for a family called Posner, where she met Joseph Hyman, who was living with his sister and her husband. Libbie Hyman stated that Posner and Hyman were both “invented names.”

Joseph Hyman moved the family — including at this time his wife, two sons and Libbie — to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Here, another son was born, and the business venture he was working on failed. The family then moved to Fort Dodge.

Here is where Libbie Hyman grew up and went to school. Her biography states:

“I was brought up in a home devoid of affection and consideration. My father, an aging man constantly worried about his declining fortunes, took practically no notice of his four children. My mother regarded children as property to be ordered about as she liked and to be used for her benefit. She seemed incapable of feelings of affection. She was also thoroughly infiltrated with the European worship of the male sex. My three brothers were brought up in idleness and irresponsibility, with the result that two of them never earned more than a bare living, whereas I, as a mere child, was required to participate in the endless work of the big ten-room house. For this reason I have violently hated housework all my life.”

It wasn’t entirely bad, though. She goes on to say:

“I was conscious from an early age of a strong interest in nature. This first took the form of a love of flowers. My earliest recollections concern flowers. As a child I roamed the woods that bordered the town, hunting the spring wild flowers. I learned their scientific names from a Gray botany book that my brothers had acquired in high school, but I puzzled over the classification until one memorable day when I suddenly realized that the flowers of a little weed known as cheeses had the same construction as hollyhock flowers. Thus I came to understand the families of flowering plants. Later in my teens I collected butterflies and moths and arranged them in a frame. I believe my interest in nature is primarily aesthetic.”

She was the 1905 Fort Dodge High School valedictorian. For some time after graduation, she was somewhat at loose ends. She was too young to teach school, even though she had passed the exams. But she didn’t want to teach. She then got a job in a factory, pasting labels on boxes.

It was Mary Crawford who gave Libbie Hyman the next step in her life. Crawford told her about a scholarship for Fort Dodge High School students to the University of Chicago. So in the fall of 1906, Libbie set off for her next adventure.

She began with studies in botany, switched to chemistry and finally settled on zoology. She received a bachelor’s degree in 1910 and a doctorate in 1915. She became a research assistant for Professor Charles Manning Child in the Zoology Department, and kept that position until Child retired.

In her personal life, things were not as pleasant. Her father died in 1907, and her mother moved the rest of the family to Chicago, expecting Libbie to take care of them.

Libbie’s professional life, on the other hand, progressed. She continued in the Zoology Department at the University of Chicago until Professor Child was close to retirement. By this point, her mother had died and her brothers still expected her to take care of them.

However, Libbie had not just been a research assistant in her time at the university. She had published several books, and taking a look at her finances, realized she could support herself on the royalties from her publications.

So she did.

She took a 15-month trip to Europe. When she returned to the U.S., she left Chicago and moved to New York. After settling near the American Museum of Natural History and availing herself of its resources, she was made an honorary research assistant (unpaid) in 1936, which gave her an office to work from.

In 1940, Libbie published Volume I of “The Invertebrates,” which was the first of what became a six-volume set.

She developed Parkinson’s disease in the 1950s, but continued researching as long as she could. Libbie Henrietta Hyman died Aug. 3, 1969, in New York, at 80 years of age.

During her lifetime, she published other books, including “A Laboratory Manual for Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy,” as well as numerous scientific articles.

The honors listed in her biography include “Member of Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, American Microscopical Society, Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole), American Society of Zoologists (vice president, 1953), Society of Systematic Zoology (president, 1959), American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, Society of Protozoologists, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Sciences. Editor, Systematic Zoology, 1959-1963. Honorary degrees: Sc.D. The University of Chicago, 1941; Sc.D. Goucher College, 1958; Sc.D. Coe College, 1959; LL.D., Uppsala College, 1963. Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal, 1951; Gold Medal, Linnean Society of London, 1960.”

The Jewish Women’s Archive encyclopedia states, “Libbie Henrietta Hyman was a major contributor to the field of zoology. Her publications have continued to be cited and used. ‘The Invertebrates’ is still considered a masterly source.”

Not bad for a girl who grew up in Fort Dodge.