San Francisco CountyBiographies JOSEPH DIMMICK JOSEPH DIMMICK, A dentist of Oakland was born in Schuyler County, Illinois, November 5, 1842, a son of Joseph Benjamin and Comfort (Dean) Dimmick, both born January 24, 1808, the father near Syracuse, New York, and the mother in Ohio. In his sixteenth year, the father moved to Ohio, when he was employed at some salt works and was married at eighteen. About 1835 he moved to Illinois, settling on a farm in Schuyler County. In 1852 they crossed the plains to Oregon, eventually settling on 320 acres in what is now Benton County. On the six-months trip, they found not a single house between the Missouri River and the Dalles, Oregon, not even where is now the city of Omaha. Fort Hall was a rough and ready frontier post of rude cabins and tents. They spent the first winter in Milwaukee, six miles north of Portland, Oregon. The fathers, whose main career was farming, died in 1861 and the mother in 1858. They had seven sons and seven daughters, of whom the oldest died in crossing the plains at the age of twenty-three, and another son was accidentally killed by the careless handling of a gun in his own house in Josephine County, Oregon, at the age of thirty-one. The other twelve children are still living, mostly in Oregon. Ann is the wife of Rev. T. M. Starr, of Halsey, Oregon, and Ethelinda is the wife of A. W. Starr a rancher of Tulare County in this State. Grandfather Joseph Dimmick, born near Syracuse New York, where the family originally English, seems to have settled for several generations, lived to the age of about sixty. His widow survived him many years, reaching the age of eighty-eight. Their son Benjamin, a landowner and merchant of Pleasant view, Schuyler County, Illinois, and Postmaster of the Village for over fifty years died in 1888, aged ninety-five. The maternal ancestry of Dr. Dimmick was of Virginia, but the grandparent's Dean moved to Ohio and afterward to Iowa, where they lived to the age of about eighty years. Their son Samuel Dean, a farmer near Shueyville, Johnson County, Iowa, is living, in 1890, aged about seventy. J. Dimmick, the subject of this sketch received his education in the common schools, beginning in Illinois and ending in Oregon. He afterward learned higher mathematics and surveying under a private teacher. The family being large, he began to earn at an early age book and clothing, going to school only in the winter terms. At fifteen he began to help in the local country stores, and in his eighteenth year, he was a clerk and virtual manager of a general store in Monroe, Oregon, for two years. He spent the summer of 1864 Prospecting in Idaho and mining a little. He taught a country school for the winter term of 1864-1865, and then took the position of clerk and manager of a general store in Corvallis, Oregon. In 1866 he made a trip to the east, from June to October, going and coming by way of Panama. He was present at the great national gathering in Chicago, in memory of Senator Douglas, and was much interested in many other sights and wonders of his native land, which to him had all the novelty of a strange land, and he was filled with enthusiasm for the greatness and glory of our reunited country. Returning to Oregon, he was married in Corvallis, April 27, 1867, to Mrs. Mary Frances (Kriechbaum) Belfils, a widow with two children, Victor Hugo Belfils now in the employ of the Puget Sound Lumber Company, and Ernest Kriechbaum Belfils, now a dentist of Tulare, California. Mrs. Dimmick is the daughter of John George and Lucy (Morgan) Kriechbaum. Her father reached the age of seventy-two, and her mother born in Illinois, September 28, 1824, and married in Iowa, in 1840 is living, in 1890. Dr. Kriechbaum was for some years a merchant in Burlington, Iowa, and came to this coast in 1853, settling in Portland, Oregon, where he carried on a Hotel. Mrs. Dimmick's grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Morgan, came to Oregon in 1853, and died at Pleasant Hill, in Lane County, the husband at the age of sixty-seven and the wife about seventy. Soon after his marriage Mr. Dimmick came to San Francisco and engaged in trade for a few months. In 1868 he went to farming and fruit raising near Windsor, Sonoma County, where he bought 164 acres on which he remained about ten years. About 1871 he began to give some attention to the study and practice of dentistry, and gradually grew to be an expert in the art. In 1879 he sold his place in Sonoma County, taking in part payment some property in this city, where he has resided since April and practiced his profession since June of that year. Dr. Dimmick has been a member of the Odd Fellows since 1865 and a Knight of Pythias since 1882 and is a past officer in both. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Dimmick are: Clarence Cornell, born in San Francisco, January 22, 1868, received a good common school education and is now in the employ of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company in Oakland; Lillian Lucy Comfort, born in Sonoma County, February 17, 1870, is a graduate in music; Edwin Huston, born January 31, 1873, is a graduate of the Oakland High School and is now learning dentistry in his father's office; Virgil Benjamin, born August 25, 1875; Ellis L., born February 22, 1879; Carroll Dean, born in Oakland, August 12, 1883. The Dimmick family is of a Healthy and Robust stock and has little need of physicians. Four Brothers and three sisters of Mr. Dimmick at a late reunion of the family were found to weigh 1,463 pounds. Source: "The Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, Pages 627-628, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.
Contributor: sarahjrust (47906879)