Barbour County, West Virginia Biography of Fred DIDDLE This file was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 200 FRED DIDDLE, an ex-service man who was a first lieutenant during the war, has given his time to banking since he left the army, and is cashier of the First National Bank of Salem. He was born at Philippi in Barbour County, October 20, 1891. His grandfather, John Diddle, settled in Barbour County a short time before the beginning of the Civil war, but finally moved out to Kansas and he died at Newton in that state at the age of eighty-one. He was of Irish lineage, and the tradition is that two Diddle Brothers came to America and were Colonial soldiers in the American Revo- lution, one of them subsequently settling in Pennsylvania and the other in Virginia. George Diddle, father of Fred Diddle, was born in old Virginia and was one year old when the family settled in Barbour County. He was in business as a contractor, and died in 1919, at the age of sixty-one. He married Flora Lee Mason, a native of Tyler County, West Virginia, and daughter of Harrison Mason, also a native of this state. Fred Diddle, only son and child of his parents, was reared in Philippi, where he completed a high school education. For one year he attended West Virginia University, and then entered Yale University, where he was graduated with the A. B. degree in 1916. In that year he volunteered for service in the Tenth Field Artillery, Connecticut National Guard, for duty during the Mexican border troubles. He had six months of military training with this organiza- tion. Then, in June, 1917, he volunteered for the World war, and subsequently entered the Second Officers' Train- ing Camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison, where he was com- missioned as first lieutenant in November, 1917. He was assigned to duty within the United States, and continued until his honorable discharge in December, 1918. Mr. Diddle is a member of the American Legion. After leaving the army he was in the service of the Citizens National Bank of Philippi until he resigned and in January, 1920, became cashier of the First National Bank of Salem. The First National Bank of Salem was established in 1898 as the Bank of Salem, and in 1904 it changed its charter to a National Bank, with a capital of $60,000.00. The bank has now surplus and undivided profits of $72,000.00, and is one of the most prosperous banking in- stitutions of Harrison County. It has had only one presi- dent, Genius Payne. The bank is housed in its own build- ing, a three-story brick block erected in 1902. Mr. Diddle in 1921 married Miss Lucile Denton, of Treze- vant, Tennessee. He is a thirty-second degree Scottish Bite Mason and Shriner, a member of the Knights of Pythias and in church faith is a Baptist.