She was a beautiful, young Irish maid, working in a wealthy English household. Her employer’s oldest son fell in love with her. When he announced intentions to marry her, his parents said they would disown him. He married her anyway. Then, bride and groom ran away to live happily ever after. “Her name was Mary Cordial,” my maternal grandmother Marilyn Matilda Dietz told me, that distinct glimmer of pleasure in her eyes—the one she always had when she retold this story. “And you are her legacy.”

This blog is a resource for those who want to--have to--find out more about who they came from.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Louis Martin Dietz, 1878 - 1934


This is a photograph of my great-great grandfather, Louis Martin Dietz, in his Spanish-American War uniform, 1899. Thanks go to Charlie Dietz for sharing this and many other old family photos with me.