John C. M. Grimm (1891-1970)

John C. M. Grimm was born in 1891 in Columbus, Ohio. He attended Ohio State University and received both a B.A. in 1911 and a M.A. in 1912. He received a Ph. D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1916. He was a student at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1919 after his service in the U.S. Army during the First World War.

Grimm began his teaching career at a high school in Plain City, Ohio in 1912. Afterwards he taught for a year at Bridgewater College as a professor of Latin and then at Juanita College in 1916-1917, before his war service. Returning from France, he was an assistant professor of French at Ohio Wesleyan University from 1919 to 1922.

Grimm came to Dickinson College in 1922 as an associate professor and taught French, German, and Spanish. Later, in 1935, he became a full professor of romance languages, becoming chair of his department in 1944. At the time of his retirement in July 1961, he was the senior member of the faculty. In addition to teaching, Grimm was the secretary of the faculty from 1944 to 1956 and the Marshal of the College from 1956 to 1960.

As an accomplished linguist, Grimm served as an advisor to the Britannica World Language Dictionary. He married Margaret Craver, class of 1929 and daughter of Forrest E. Craver, class of 1899. John C. M. Grimm died on November 20, 1970.