Copyright Quisumbing Family 2007. All rights reserved.
Team headed by Marcelino N.
Maceda and (b) the Quisumbing ink or Quink whose formula was later sold by him
to and registered as Quink by Parker Pen Company, U.S.A. in 1931. He was the
owner of Quisumbing
Mining
School at
Dasmarinas Street,
Manila. Author’s recollections; Quisumbing
family recollections; Bert Quisumbing to Quisumbing relatives dated April 23, 2005 by e-mail.
Eduardo graduated his B Agriculture from the University of the
Philippines in
1918 and obtained his MS and Ph.D. in botany, magna cum laude, from the
University of
Chicago in 1921 and 1923,
respectively, through an American fellowship.
It
was in the University of the
Philippines at
Los Banos, Laguna that he came in contact with Dean Edwin Copeland, the founder of the
College of
Agriculture. His contact of Dean
Copeland made him choose a career of a botanist instead of a medical doctor.
While pursuing his doctorate at
Chicago
University, he published his “Stony
Layer in Seeds of Gymnosperms” in 1922.
On his return to the Philippines, he was appointed instructor and was later promoted to assistant professor of UP College of Agriculture. In 1928 he was awarded a grant from the National Research Council of America, a grant strictly reserved for the Americans, and was stationed at the University of California. There he published the monograph Philippine Piperaceae considered to be one of the most difficult plant families to study.
Then he was appointed botanist of the Bureau of Science and later became chief of the Division of Botany in the same Bureau. When the National Museum was organized in 1939, he was its chief while concurrently holding the position of Assistant Director of that Bureau or the chief of the Natural History Museum upon his retirement in 1961.
In 1954 he was named a Guggerheim fellow at Harvard University and a grantee of the National Research Council of the Philippines in 1972.
It should be noted here that the Philippine National Herbarium, one of the best in the Far East before the war, had a collection of 305,367 specimens. After the war its entire collection was totally destroyed. Then he took the task of rebuilding the collection so that it had 79,983 specimens – a modest achievement – despite of circumstances and lack of government support.
His major works included the Medicinal Plants of the Philippines (1951 and 1978 editions), Our Friends of the Flower World (1937) with Catalina Velasquez Ty as junior author and Complete Writings of Dr. Eduardo A. Quisumbing on Philippine Orchids with Dr. Helen Valmayor as editor. His articles on Philippine orchids were published by the Philippine Orchid Review.
He was a charter member of the National Research Council of the Philippines who served as a member of its Executive Board before the war. He was the founder and first president of Philippine Orchid Society. He was named National Scientist for his numerous achievements during the Marcos Administration in 1980.
Several plants named in his honor are quisumbingiana merrilli, acasia quisumbingii, hopea quisumbingiana, phalaeropsis eduardo quisumbing, etc. An orchid named after him, tuberolabium quisumbingii, is seen at hhtp://www.sonic.nat/orchids/TV page.htm. See ibid.; Chuchi L. Constantino to Socorro Quisumbing King and the rest of the family dated April 30, 2005 by email; the Original Six Quisumbing Brothers in author’s files; University of San Carlos Filipiniana Library, Cebu City, for copies of the first three publications cited above; Alfred T. Tiamson, Mindanao-Sulu Bibliography (Davao City: Ateneo de Davao, 1970), p. 175 for titles of articles on Philippine orchids in Mindanao; Quisumbing family recollections.
Norberto received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of the Philippines in 1920, his second AB from Philadelphia University in the same year and Bachelor of Science in Business from Columbia University two years later.
He worked as assistant chief, Loans and Discount Department, of the Philippine National Bank (PNB) and People Bank and Trust Company of Manila. See ibid. ; Jennifer Ulrich to the author dated May 16, 2005 by email.
In the 1950’s he owned a ham processing plant whose meat supply came from Cebu to be processed as ham under the label “orchid” in Pasay City, a fishing fleet consisting of a mother ship with six smaller ones docking at Dasmarinas, Cavite to sell fresh fish to Manila, a shipping company of three ships (Occidental, Oriental and Continental) plying between Manila and Cebu or vice versa and a match company, Pan Oriental Match Company (PANOMATCH), whose buildings were constructed by the author’s father, Engr. Carlos C. Quisumbing, Sr., in Mandaue City. All these business ventures except the fourth under new management are presently non-existent. A telephone and personal interview of Ramon Quisumbing, former councilor of Cebu City, on June 9 and 11, 2005 at Myra’s Pension House; author’s recollections.
Manuel probably got his Licentiate of Medicine from University of Santo Tomas and went to the United States as a government scholar for his Doctor of Medicine. See the Original Six Quisumbing Brothers in author’s files.
He was honored as Doctor of the Year by the Philippine Medical Association (PMA) in the 1960’s and served as Mayor of San Pablo City for several years. Author’s recollections; information confirmed by Ramon Quisumbing in a personal interview on June 11, 2005.
34“The Quisumbing Clan,” p. 2b.
35 The 1903 co-pensionados mentioned by his grandfather were Jose Espiritu (UP College of Law dean), Mariano H, de Joya, Delfin Jaranilla, Ludivico Hidrosolo, Jose Sanvictores, Ambrosio Magsaysay and Marcial Kasilag (Commissioner for Mindanao and Sulu). See footnote 4 in ibid.
In another source, Vicente Pragante (Director of the Bureau of Public Works), Francisco Delgado (Resident Commissioner) and Jorge Cleofas Bacobo (UP President) were named as 1903 pensionados. See Munden, op. cit., p.62.
According to a local newspaper columnist, five women who composed this group were Honoria Acosta, Elizabeth Florendo, Eleanor de Leon, Genoveva Llamas and Luisa Sison. Read Madrilena de la Cerna, “The Filipina,” Cebu Daily News, November 27, 2005, p. l5 in author’s possession.
Other pensionados in the later years were Sotero Bahoy (1904), Antonio de las Alas (1905), Conrado Benitez (1906), Juan Arellano (1908), Juan Paez (1912), Conrado Paras, Pablo Lucas, Anastalio de Castro, Carlos P. Romulo, Jose P. Laurel, Prudencio Langcauon (1919) and Encarnacion Alzona, the first Filipina to be conferred a Ph.D. in history. See Munden, op. cit., pp. 62-63.
36Ibid., pp. 16-18. The two students who missed the trip in Manila arrived in the United States on December 1, 1903. See Note 37 in ibid., p. 71.
37Ibid., p. 18; “The Quisumbing Clan,” loc. cit.
38Munden, op. cit., pp. 18-19.
