Deibel, Frederick 
Article written by Charles Richards, dated January 17, 1929, news paper name was cut off from article.
Submitted by: Patricia Schiro September 2003

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Oldest Notary’s Chin Shows Why 
     At 80  He Still Attends to Duties
     You can see it by his chin.  (Photo included with Article)  In some things 
Judge Frederick Deibel is stubborn.  He refused to leave.  First, he refused to 
leave his office, in spite of 80 ears and deafness.  Nest he refused to leave 
this life. He is proud of his 13 operations during the last three and a half 
years.  Because he has won out in both cases he will celebrate his birthday 
this year by staying away from his desk all day Friday.
     Judge Deibel became a notary public at 21, which was 59 years ago.  On 
the side, he found time to be collector of taxes and treasurer of Carrollton, 
to serve for two terms in the Legislature, and to act as judge of the fifth 
records court for eight years, to work as secretary and treasurer of the 
police jury of Jefferson parish, and to keep care of the state notarial 
archives for three governors.  But he has always clung to his profession as 
notary.  He holds the record for length of service.
Annexed By City
     New Orleans annexed Judge Deibel along with Carrollton.  It was not a 
bad move.  He held the political leadership in the Seventeenth ward for 30 
years.
     Thus, near his 80th birthday, Judge Deibel looks back from his seat in 
the Machine of Time --now motorized -- and declares he can see a queer, crooked 
path, as far as politics are concerned.
     “I worked in the dark days of Reconstruction after the “Civil War,” he 
says, “and saw so much tyranny that I can’t understand why the children of the 
fathers and mothers of that day could vote the Republican ticket last November.”
     Times Are Better
     He used to ride to New Orleans in a horse car and a dinky train.  Now New 
Orleans is all around him.
     When his father’s death in 1866 compelled him to start working at 17, to 
support his mother and six brothers and sisters, it was a small rural school 
that he had to tell goodbye.  When the juggling of events made him a member of 
the school board, that school had been replace by one of the units of a large 
city’s educational system.
     “Yes, times have changed,”  he says, “and for the better”
     The judge married at 21 and his wife is still his companion in the transformed 
Carrollton.  They live at 8216 Freret street.  Their four daughters and four grand
children will be there on Friday when he observes his eightieth birthday.