----Source: History of Clark County, Wisconsin (1918), by
Franklyn, Curtiss-Wedge
John Dietrich and Family
JOHN CHRISTIAN DIETRICH, a well-known and successful
farmer of Grant was born on his parents' homestead in section 22,
this township, May 5, 1862, son of Christian and Anna (Rausch)
Dietrich. Both parents were natives of Germany, the father born in
Wurttemberg and the mother in Byron. Christian Dietrich was taught
the miller's trade in his youth, his father having an old-time
grist-mill. He was the only one of the family to come to America,
which he did at the age of 23 years, finding work in the lumber
camps of Clark Township. He also worked on farms and after being
thus engaged for some years, purchased a quarter section of land
from the Government, paying for it $200. It was covered with
timber, not a-tree having been cut. On this place he built a log
house, just a little east of where the present residence stands on
the farm. It was about this time that he gave up bachelor life and
married Anna Rausch who had come here from Wood County with her
father, her mother having died in Germany. They began housekeeping
in the log dwelling, which, however, after awhile burned down, and
Mr. Dietrich had to construct another, stilly later building the
frame residence that is now standing. Often he and his wife walked
six miles to and from the village, bringing home flour on their
backs. While he cleared the land, she spun wool for caps and
mittens. In time, after much hard work and some privations, they
became fairly prosperous. He helped to build the German Lutheran
church and was for a number of years and until his death one of its
leading members.
He and his wife
both reached old age, the former dying in 1913, when 84 years old,
and the latter at the same age in 1911. Their children, an born in
the log cabin, were: John, Henry, Ernest, Charles, Fred and August,
of whom the last mentioned died at the age of nine months.
John C. Dietrich
acquired his education in the log schoolhouse and grew up on the
home farm, which he assisted his father to clear. In the winter he
worked in the woods, but has never left the home farm, on which he
has made a number of improvements, having erected a barn 40 by 66
feet, a silo 14 by 35 feet and a brick house of ten rooms, the
latter preventing a contrast with the old cabin his parents started
in, which had just one room, with a stove in the center and a bed
in one corner. His present farm consists of eighty acres of his
parents' old homestead, combined with forty acres adjoining, which
he purchased. Mr. Dietrich raises Durham and Shorthorn cattle, also
horses and Poland-China hogs, all his stock being of a good
grade.
He has also other
financial interests, being a stockholder in the Neillsville
Co-operative Farmers' Elevator & Lumber Co., the Wausau Canning
Plant and the Granton Bank. As a responsible citizen he has been
called upon to serve in public office and was supervisor one year,
being at present a member of the school board. His religious
affiliations are with the German Lutheran Church. Mr. Dietrich was
married June 3, 1891, to Augusta Strey, who was born in Washington
County, Wis., August 6, 1869, daughter of Edward and Wilhelmina
(Buckhouse) Strey. Her parents were born in Germany and emigrated
to the United States about thirty-five years- ago, taking land in
section 23, Grant Township, this county, where for some time they
lived the life of pioneers. Edward Strey is still living at the age
of 74 years, but his wife died in 1902 at the age of 53. They also
were of the Lutheran faith. Mr. and Mrs. Dietrich are the parents
of eight children living: Emil, Bernard and Minnie (twins), Emma,
Rollie, Oneida, Edwin, Arnold and Luella. Emil died young. Minnie
is the wife of Herman Handt, of Granton, and they have one child,
John H.
