"The Cider Man"

Walter K. Dietz had come to the village of Deep River from Illinois sometime between 1870 and 1880, when the census found him, at the age of 27, living in the household of George and Mary Wood and working at the village cheese factory. Twenty years later he was still there, by then living alone, describing himself as an engineer. He owned a building large enough to accommodate dances, known as "Dietz hall" and mentioned occasionally in the social columns; e.g., in February 1903, Walter announced his "annual Washington birthday dance," a masquerade ball to take place in Dietz hall on the 20th. In August of that year he announced another dance — these are the ones I took note of; there may have been others that I don't remember.

In October 1905 Walter fell seriously ill with "paralysis of the abdomen and lower limbs," according to the Gazette, which added (with the bluntness common at the time), "His recovery is quite doubtful." He was moved from his home to St. Margaret's Hospital in Hammond, and after several weeks' treatment there, he had improved enough to go stay with one of his brothers at Chadwick, Illinois.

October of 1906 saw another dance at Dietz hall, but whether Walter was there or not, I don't know. The next mention I find of him in my notes is in 1911, when he had just come back to Deep River after spending a year working in Waterloo, Iowa, and was "hustling to get his cider mill in operation for the season." The following year he reported pressing about a thousand gallons of cider in the course of a few weeks.

The next six years passed without a mention of him — in my own notes, anyway — until late in December 1918 came this announcement:

Walter K. Dietz, an old resident of Deepriver, and familiarly known as the cider man, is in very poor health, and has been for some time. He sold his house and lot to T.J. Cullman, the Deepriver miller, and last week accompanied his brother as far as Maywood, Ill. where he will stay a while with a niece and later go to his brother's, in Iowa.

And so "the cider man" left his long-time home, probably never to return, for he died in October 1919.


Sources:
♦ 1870 Census.
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ "General News Items." Hobart Gazette 6 Feb. 1903; 7 Aug. 1903; 6 Oct. 1905; 13 Oct. 1905; 8 Dec. 1905; 19 Oct. 1906.
♦ Indiana WPA Death Records Index.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 18 Aug. 1911; 1 Nov. 1912; 27 Dec. 1918.