Daniel Lewis Deibler was born at Glen Hazel, Pennsylvania on September 19, 1877 to Solomon and Katherine Aukerman Deibler. Lewis, as he was known, grew to adulthood on his parent’s farm in Indiana County, Pennsylvania and moved to Johnsonburg in the mid 1890’s. He worked for the Funk Bros. Meat Market at 529 Market Street (#42 in the Brick Block at that time) andlater as a bartender in Grumley’s Hotel on Centre Street where Lewis was a boarder. On April 27, 1902 he married Pearl Coweter of Renovo, Pennsylvania at Ridgway. Lewis and Pearl eventually moved to Dubois, Pennsylvania and then on to Bradford, Pennsylvania about 1911. By 1920 Lewis and Pearl were parenting six children and he had changed occupations from slinging drinks to working as a machinist for the Bovaird &; Seyfang Manufacturing Company of Bradford. After a relatively long and prosperous life Lewis and Pearl died just months apart in 1945 in Bradford.

How is the life of Lewis Deibler and the Brick Block entwined? Just before Christmas in 1897 Lewis Deibler, 20, employed by a Market Street meat market fell some 48 feet from a third floor window of the Brick Block on Market Street. Miraculously, Lewis survived unharmed. He wasconfined to his bed for several days for observation, but recovered with no apparent injuries. Whew!

In the category of “Believe It Or Not” Dr. Eugene Carl Deibler, born in Bradford in 1924, the grandson of Lewis Deibler, paratrooped onto Normandy, France on D-Day June 6, 1944. He had trained in Fort Benning, Georgia practicing static jumps from a 250-foot tall tower that had been a part of the 1939 World’s Fair. In June 2019 in France Dr. Deibler he was one of 16 veterans honored at the 75 th anniversary of D-Day. Another one of the 16 that day in France was Johnsonburg’s own Joe Scida!

It seems that Lewis Deibler kept his feet on the ground after his fall from the Brick Block, but certainly jumping from high places uninjured apparently ran in the family.

Author: Kevin “Reg” Barwin

Kevin Barwin, a Johnsonburg native, who spent his youth peddling newspapers in Johnsonburg and reading the newsprint, while walking his routes, acquired a taste for the past.

THE PAPER BOY FROM THE PAPER CITY, More on his book: here