Reno County Biographies
"The History of Reno County, Vol. 2," Sheridan Ploughe, 1917
DIETRICH MEYER.
Dietrich Meyer, farmer, director and treasurer of the Farmers Grain
Company, of Kansas, is a living example of what a thrifty foreigner can
accomphsh by industry in this country. He is the son of Henry and
Margaret (Wiebe) Meyer, and was born near the town of Rethern, in the province
of Hanover, Germany, September 29, 1867. He was named for his paternal
grandfather, a farmer, who lived and died in the Fatherland, and who
spelled his name Diedrich, but the spelling was later changed to Dietrich. His
father, Henry Meyer, was a small landholder in what was then the kingdom
of Hanover. His birth occurred in 1829. The mother, Margaret Wiebe,
died in 1871, and later the father married, secondly, Catherine Heers, who
lived only one and one-half years after her marriage.
Young Dietrich Meyer, left motherless at the age of four years, had
to shift for himself, but he was compelled to attend school until he was
fourteen years of age. The following year, 1882, when he was fifteen,
in company with a family named Lueders, with whom he was living, he
emigrated to the United States, and located in the state of New York.
They stayed there only one year, going farther west to Minnesota. When
he was seventeen, Dietrich began the life of a farmhand, going from one
farm to another.
In 1886 Henry Meyer sold his farm in Germany and emigrated to
Sedgwick county, Kansas, where he and his eldest son, Henry, bought a farm
north of the town of Cheney, and there his death occurred in 1897. On
his arrival he was joined by his son, Fritz, who remained with him until
his death in 1888.
Dietrich Meyer came to Kansas and went to work for Fred Warning,
of Haven township, Reno county, in 1891. Soon afterward he purchased
eighty acres two miles southeast of the town of Haven and here he built
a beautiful modern home sixteen years later. The large white farmhouse,
surrounded by well-kept shrubbery and commodious barns, is among the
many show places of the county and is visible for miles. With one hundred
and sixty acres of land which his wife inherited, and with additional
purchases, the Meyer holdings amount to four hundred acres. Like the
remainder of his family he is a member of St. Paul's German Evangelical church.
of which he was an elder. He is director and treasurer of the Farmers Grain
Company, of Kansas, which under the management of its directors, has
been a very profitable company for the stockholders. By keeping the price
of grain higher than the surrounding markets it has proven a boon to the
farmers, no less than to the merchants of Haven, to whom it has thrown
much business. Mr. Meyer also helped organize the Farmers Telephone
Company. One sign of his prosperity is the handsome seven-passenger
Mitchell car which he drives.
Dietrich Meyer was married on October 13, 1892, to Mary Harms, the
daughter of John W. Harms, of Wisconsin. They are the parents of three
children: Minnie, the wife of Walter Stecher, assistant cashier of the State
Bank of Haven; Ella and Alvin.
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This website created Dec. 13, 2011 by Sheryl McClure.
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