Grandpa Marcher was the baby of the family, just like me! Born on a farm near Tomah, Wisconsin, he was the youngest of William and Lavina Marcher's 7 children. I knew him as a jeweler (well, I knew him as my granpa Marcher, but I knew he was a jeweler). But I didn't know that his official title was Certified Gemologist. Nor had I ever heard that he had been an optician.

He was in the gem cutting and jewelry (wholesale? retail?) selling business with his brother Frank A. Marcher on Grand Avenue in Los Angeles, probably during the 1920's.

Granpa was the author of a series of articles in The Mineralogist entitled "Gem Lore". Below is an article of his that my 2nd cousin Sterling Richard Marcher, Jr. found on a UC Berkeley site, which Grandpa had written in 1939 as a newly Certified Gemologist. In the editor's biographical caption we learn that he had been operating "for some time one of the largest gem cutting establishments in California":