Montgomery County PA Archives Biographies.....Dietterich, Rev. J. Eugene December 4, 1858 - 
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Joe Patterson jpatter@epix.net February 18, 2026, 3:12 pm

Source: Biographical Annals of Montgomery County Pennsylvania, T. S. Benham & Company and the Lewis Publishing Company, 1904
Author: Ellwood Roberts, Editor

REV. J. EUGENE DIETTERICH, the well known pastor of Zion 
Evangelical Lutheran church, of Whitemarsh township, 
Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, is a native of Columbia 
county, same state, where he was born December 4, 1858. He 
is the son of Henry (deceased) and Tamar (Evans) Dietterich. 
The father was also a minister of the gospel.

Rev. Mr. Dietterich was educated at Susquehanna University, 
and at Pennsylvania College, at Gettysburg, where he 
graduated in 1886. He then took a course in the Theological 
Seminary at Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, under his father. He 
was called to a charge at Friesburg, New Jersey, where he 
remained four years, and had a very successful pastorate. 
The manner in which the congregation prospered, and the 
large increase in the membership of the church, bore ample 
testimony to the success of his ministerial labors. Rev. Mr. 
Dietterich organized and conducted a mission at Bridgeton, 
New Jersey, which under his pastorate developed into a 
flourishing congregation. He remained in that position until 
1895, when he received a call to Whitemarsh township, where 
he has ever since been located as the pastor of a 
flourishing congregation. He has built up the membership 
very much, and established the church's finances on a sound 
basis. His people love and respect him very much.

During 1903 he organized a church at Oreland, Pennsylvania, 
which is now in a flourishing condition, and has a 
membership of twenty-nine.

While in Bridgeton, New Jersey, Mr. Dietterich was a member 
of the board of directors of the Children's Aid Society, of 
the state, and president of the County Sunday School 
Association. He is the originator of the idea of decorating 
the graves of the sailors of the United States naval service 
who died and were buried at sea. He began the movement while 
he was filling a pastorate in the state of New Jersey, and 
since then the custom has gained a world-wide interest. On 
every Decoration Day the people gather at the seaside and 
strew flowers on the waters in memory of the heroic dead. 
Rev. Mr. Dietterich is a member of the junior order of 
United American Mechanics.

Mr. Dietterich married September 22, 1887, Miss Margaret L. 
Dimm, daughter of Prof. J. R. Dimm, D. D., president of 
Susquehanna University. They have two children: Charles D., 
born on November 7, 1888, and Margaret E., born November 25, 
1892. Mrs. Dietterich is a very superior and gifted woman, 
and aids her husband very greatly, in church work. Her 
father, Dr. Dimm, was at one time pastor of St. Peter's 
Lutheran church at Barn Hill. After resigning that charge he 
became pastor of the Messiah Lutheran church, at Sixteenth 
and Jefferson streets, Philadelphia. He subsequently 
purchased the Female Seminary at Lutherville, a suburb of 
Baltimore, which he conducted successfully for a number of 
years. Resigning this position, he became the president of 
the Missionary Institute (now Susquehanna University), in 
which he is now senior professor.

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