John William⁵ Diederich (John⁴, Johann Nicolaus³, Paul², Johann Nicolaus¹) was born 11 May 1847 at Town of Lawrence, Brown County, Wisconsin, the fourth of the known children of John and Anna (Clasen) Diederich. His birth is recorded in Brown County birth records, v. 1, p. 459, as Jean Dietrich, son of Jean Dietrich and Ann Classen.

He died 25 December 1930, age 83, of acute myocarditis, at Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wisconsin. The funeral was held ___ December 1930 at Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church at Ladysmith, and he is buried in the Catholic section of Riverside Cemetery near Ladysmith. See Rusk County death records, v. 6, no. 1283. His death certificate tells when and where he died and the cause of his death. His obituary was published in The Ladysmith News on 2 January 1931, p. 1.

He married, first, Cecilia Van der Heyden 13 June 1878 [14 June 1875] at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, DePere, Brown County, Wisconsin. Reverend William DeKelver presided. Witnesses were Nellie Van der Heyden and Mathias Diedricks. The marriage is not recorded in the marriage register of the church. The marriage of Jon diedricks (sic) and Cecilia Van der Heyden is recorded in Brown County marriage records, v. 8, p 156, and this record provides the names of the priest and the witnesses.

Cecilia Van der Heyden (Celia, Cena, Cina, Youza? Cynthia?) was born 4 February 1856 at Stiles, Oconto County, Wisconsin, the daughter of John and Josina (Manders) Van der Heyden. Her parents were living at Stiles when she was born, but there is no record of her birth in Oconto County birth records. Her gravestone gives the date of her birth.

She died 22 May 1887, age 31, at DePere of complications following the birth of her fifth child, George Joseph, on 4 May. The funeral was held ___ May 1887 at, probably, St. Mary's Catholic Church at DePere, and she is buried in Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery there, next to her son, George Joseph, who died the following August, and her husband's parents. There is no record of her death in Brown County death records, nor is there any record of her death in the records of St. Mary's Catholic Church at DePere, but her gravestone gives the date of her death.

John William Diederich married, second, Wilhelmina Van der Heyden 15 April 1890 at St. Mary's Catholic Church, DePere. She was his first wife's sister. At the time of their marriage, he was 42 years old, and she was 21. The Liber Matrimonii et Defunctorum (marriage and death book) of St. Mary's Catholic Church at DePere contains this entry for 1890 on p 264, which has been translated from the Latin: "15 April joined together in matrimony Joannes Diederick and Wilhelmina van der Heiden. Witnesses were Josephus van der Heiden and Nina van der Leest." The entry was signed by the Reverend Joannes Verstegen, pastor at that time. The entry also recited that a dispensation had been granted from the impediment of a collateral relationship in the first degree which existed because of the prior marriage of John Diederich to Wilhelmina's sister. This marriage is also recorded in Brown County marriage records, v. 10, p. 444.

Wilhelmina Van der Heyden (Minnie) was born 4 September 1868 at Town of Rockland, Brown County, Wisconsin, the daughter of John and Josina (Manders) Van der Heyden. See also Brown County birth records, v. 2, p. 157. Her birth is also recorded in the baptismal register of St. Mary's Catholic Church at DePere, p. 60, for 1868, as follows: "Baptized Sept. 4th an infant born today, daughter of Joannis van der heyden and Josina Manders, married. Named Wilhelmina. Sponsors: Joannes Van der Lienden and Catherina Van den berg." It is signed by the Reverend W. A. Verboort, pastor at the time.

Wilhelmina died 21 December 1936, age 68, of acute dilation of the heart and hypertension, at Ladysmith. The funeral was held ___ December 1936 at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church, and she is buried next to her husband in Riverside Cemetery. Her death is recorded in Rusk County death records, v. 7, no. 604, which tells when and where she died and the cause of her death.

Cecilia Diederich's gravestone reads:

In Memory of
Cecilia
wife of
John Diederich, Jr.
Born
February 4, 1856
Died
May 22, 1887

George J.
Son of
J. & C. Diederich
Born
May 4, 1887
Died
Aug. 11, 1887

John William Diederich, who went by his initials, "J.W.", grew up on his parents' farm in the Town of Lawrence but was also trained as a carpenter and cabinetmaker.

When his father died in 1874, he inherited a one-eighth undivided interest in the farm. In 1879, he sold his share of the farm and moved his family to Stanton Precinct, Fillmore County, Nebraska, to establish a homestead.

The Census reports of Fillmore County for 1880 show that his sister, Mary, was living in his household and that his brothers, Antone and Joseph, and their families were nearby neighbors. However, the effort to establish a homestead was unsuccessful. Their home was made of sod, carved from the soil of the prairie. Winters on the open prairie were fiercely cold and windy, and the summers were very hot. Swarms of insects ate the crops. His baby daughter, Anna, born in January 1880, died in August. J.W. and his brother, Antone, stayed in Nebraska about two years and then moved back to Brown County, Wisconsin. Their brother, Joseph, and sister, Mary, remained in Nebraska, however.

After his first wife, Cecilia, died and he remarried, J.W. resided for a while at Marshfield, Wisconsin, and then for several years at Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

While in Oshkosh, he worked as a carpenter. After construction of the two-story drug store building at the corner of Main and Algoma Streets was completed in the fall of 1899, he had no further work in sight. Arnold Verhyen, an agent for the Hein Land Company and the husband of Jane Van Der Heyden, a sister-in-law, persuaded him to buy a 160-acre farm in the Town of Grow, Rusk County, Wisconsin, for $640.

The Hein Land Company had cut the pine off the land, but it was not truly cleared since the stumps and the hardwood trees remained. J. W. paid for the land with $300 of his savings and $340 borrowed from Frank Crabb, husband of another sister-in-law, Petronella Van Der Heyden. They moved in October.

At the turn of the century, Ladysmith was named "Warner", but a man named Smith offered to build a paper mill there if the town were named after his wife. Thus it was renamed "Ladysmith". What was then the community of Deer Tail was similarly renamed "Tony"—for Tony Hein. The Diederich farm lay between these two communities—about three miles from Ladysmith and four miles from Tony.

J.W. Diederich served as chairman of the board of supervisors of the Town of Grow for several years.

Years later, his son, Charles, who was four years old when his parents moved to Rusk County, described the first winter. "Dad and Bill (John William, Jr.) built a two-story log house before winter set in. They killed a deer and hung him from a tree limb so the wolves couldn't get at him. We ate off that deer all winter.

"In the Spring, we put in a few acres of turnips and rutabagas on new cleared land. Dad built a school house on Joseph Crabb's land for $800. (Joseph Crabb was a brother of Frank Crabb.)

"Each year we cut wood to pay our taxes and to buy horses, cattle, and machinery. We made maple syrup each spring. We ate venison, rabbits, partridge and chicken, pork, and usually a steer. We raised potatoes, carrots, onions, peas, and beans for the table and corn, barley, and oats to feed the stock.

"We had a double-row corn planter and cultivator, a McCormick corn-binder and chopper, a burr mill to grind dry grain crops, and two gas engines. John William, Jr., was accidentally killed by a saw rig driven by one of those gas engines.

"We had many large hemlock we sawed into lumber. Some of the large maple was shipped to Minneapolis. Most hardwood was cut into 16" lengths and sold at Ladysmith. I hauled two loads a day on the horse sleigh, generally.

"Saturday, we usually took butter and eggs to market. The Hull & Stelsman store had regular weekly customers who took the butter which mother put into two- and three-pound rolls. The hotel took any surplus from them.

"In the Spring, leeks tainted the milk unless we kept the cows out of the pasture for a few weeks. We bought a silo and fed silage, hay and grain to them then.

"There was no wagon road through from Tony to Ladysmith so we built one through the swamps using logs, poles, rock, and brush, covered with clay and soil from the side ditches we dug for drainage. We called those roads 'corduroys.' They were pretty rough in most places for lumber wagons, but when covered with gravel, not too bad. They were good sleigh roads in the winter. Snow was plentiful.

"Quite often, we walked to town on the Soo Line tracks. If we had a heavy load, like a sack of sugar, the railroad section foreman would bring it to Campbell's Mill, a spur or siding where the logging road crossed the tracks midway between Ladysmith and Tony."

In 1917, J.W. retired to Ladysmith. He auctioned off his personal property for $4,000 and sold the farm to R.E. Meyers for $8,000. R.E. Meyers paid $3,500 down and gave a mortgage for the balance. Later, E.L. Jay assumed the mortgage, but it was never paid off. In 1939, his daughter, Theresia Frances (Diederich) Van Horne, paid E.L. Jay $500 for a quit-claim deed, paid the delinquent taxes, and took over the farm. She sold in it 1950.

For about two months before his death, J.W. suffered from septic arthritis in his right knee joint. He passed away on Christmas morning in 1930 while his family was attending 5 a.m. mass.

His wife, Minnie, died a few days before Christmas in 1936. She had walked through snow from her home to the E.L. Jay home, a few blocks away, in a fruitless attempt to collect a some money on the farm mortgage. E.L. Jay refused to pay anything. Angry and frustrated, she began to trudge home through the snow. Her obituary, published on page 1 of the Ladysmith News on 21 December 1936, completes the story: "Monday evening Mrs. Diederich walked to the E.L. Jay home a few blocks away and on the return she felt very tired and stopped at the Harry Strop home to rest. She mentioned the fact that she was tired and immediately afterwards collapsed and was declared dead on the arrival of a physician. Death was attributed to a heart attack, Mrs. Diederich having had a chronic heart ailment for several years." According to her death certificate, she died of "acute dilation of the heart and hypertension."

John William Diederich and his first wife, Cecilia, had five children:

John William Diederich = Marie Albertina Portman
Anna Cecilia Diederich (died in infancy)
Anton Francis Diederich = Anna Sophia Rasmussen
Mary Petronella Diederich = Henry John Arts
George Joseph Diederich (died in infancy)

John William Diederich and his second wife, Wilhelmina, had three children:

Theresia Frances Anna Diederich = 1) John Norman Van Horne
= 2) Wilbur Newton McNeil
Joseph Charles Diederich = Alice Florence Yost
Viola Cecelia Diederich = Joseph Charles Kapp