San
Joaquin County
Biographies
GEORGE H. DIETZ
A druggist whose exceptionally fine
scientific training and wide, valuable experience have enabled him to render a
great service to the community in which he lives and thrives is George H. Dietz,
of 19 South San Joaquin Street, Stockton, the same city in which he was born on
October 9, 1881 in the same house and room in which his mother was born. This house, at 205 East Lindsay Street is
still standing. Henry Dietz, the father
of our subject, was a native of Germany, and he married Miss Edith Fredericks,
a native of Stockton. Both are now
deceased, having lived useful lives and left behind the best of records as
citizens, neighbors, and friends. Three
of their children have survived. George
H. is the subject of our review.
Florence has become the wife of Ed L. Wright; and Linda S. is well known
as a music teacher in Stockton.
Henry Dietz came to America when a
young man and, having crossed the Great Plains, passed the greater part of his
days in Virginia City, where he conducted a bakery. He was there during the days of the Comstock
gold mine excitement, and was a personal friend of the MacKay’s, the Fair’s and
the Huntington’s, and was himself a familiar figure in the pioneer days of Nevada. Grandfather Henry Fredericks was also a
native of Germany, and crossed the plains to California in pioneer days; he
became one of the early settlers of Stockton, and was there a landowner, and
teamed to the southern mines in early days.
He also went to the mines in Nevada.
One sixteen-horse team he sent out from Stockton loaded with freight for
Nevada was never heard from. Later Mr.
Fredericks located in Virginia City and follow draying. He passed away in Stockton.
George H. Dietz pursued the usual
courses in the Stockton schools, and when about thirteen started to earn his
living. He entered the employ of the
Holden Drug Company, one of the pioneer drug companies of California,
established in Stockton far back in 1849, commencing work for a wage of only
two dollars a week, and working twelve hours a day, seven days in the
week. In 1906 he started in business for
himself in a small way, in a store on Market Street and later he moved to his
present store at 19 South San Joaquin Street.
As the inventor of the Dietz “Euca-Menth”
cough drop he has become especially well known.
He put them on the market in 1918 and started to make them in five pound
lots, putting them up in paper bags.
Today he has a factory devoted to the manufacture of the same, and he
makes 500 pounds a day, the sale having been extended all over the world. He also makes the “Keep Kool
Kamfor Kream,” which has
proven very popular. He has the best
prescription trade in Stockton, being endorsed by eighteen of the leading
doctors in this city. This record of
success is all the more interesting because Mr. Dietz is a self-made man, who
has risen to his present position unaided and through his own industrious,
honest efforts.
On March 7, 1915 at Stockton, Mr.
Dietz was married to Miss Lillian A. Blanchard, a native of Stockton, and their
union has been blessed with the birth of three children. George Robert is the eldest, and then there
are twin sisters, Janis Lillian and June Edith.
Mr. Dietz has been a member of Stockton Lodge No. 11, I. O. O. F., since
1904.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1291-1292. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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