Butte County
Biographies
ROLAND AND MAE H. DILLER
ROLAND AND MAE H. DILLER.—A refined, cultured business woman, who is making her influence felt in horticultural circles, Mae H. Diller, of Chico, has ably managed the affairs left by her late husband, Roland Diller. He was born near Pittsburg, Pa., a son of Charles Diller, a professor of mathematics. His mother was a Miss Thompson, a daughter of Captain Thompson, a sea-faring man.
Roland Diller came with his parents to Sterling, Ill., where he grew up on a farm in Whiteside County, and attended the public school, receiving a good education. He then entered into partnership with Ingersoll Brothers in their pork-packing plant at Sterling, and became a good accountant. When he married he chose for his wife Miss Mae H. Deyo, who was born in Polo, Ogle County, Ill., a daughter of John G. Deyo, a native of Ulster County, N. Y., of old Knickerbocker stock. He married Elizabeth A Mackey, also a New Yorker, and they moved to Polo, Ill. He was an architect and builder and also owned a farm near Dixon, Ill. Of their nine children, Mae H. was the youngest and she is the only one in California.
Mae H. Deyo was educated in the Young Ladies’ Seminary at Dixon, Ill., and then engaged in educational work, teaching school until her marriage to Mr. Diller. After their marriage they continued to live in Illinois until 1902, when they sold out and came to California, settling in Chico, Butte County. Mr. Diller engaged in the real estate and insurance business, also operated the John Dick mine. He met with success in his real estate business and became a prominent man of affairs in Butte County. Mr. and Mrs. Diller had four children born to them; Ralph, a high school graduate, is now a civil engineer; Vivian, a graduate of the Chico State Normal, is a teacher; Octavia, attending the Chico State Normal; and Elaine, deceased at the age of four years. Mr. Diller was accidentally killed, in 1912, by shock from a live wire near Hamilton City. Since the death of her husband, Mrs. Diller has made her home in Chico, where she erected a residence at the corner of Hazel and Fourth Streets. She has improved two ten-acre prune orchards near town.
Transcribed
by Sharon Walford Yost.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1255-1256, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Sharon
Walford Yost.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies