Thomas Dietmeyer Obituary

Tom passed away on October 13, 2023 (Friday the 13th) in Kissimmee, Florida at the age of 70 from multiple health issues. He was born in St. Therese Hospital in Waukegan on May 7, 1953. He was the second oldest of seven children of Robert and Catherine Dietmeyer. He attended St. Anastasia School with the class of 1967 and Carmel HS in Mundelein class of 1971.

Tom was actually very lucky to make it to the age of 70. In November 1978 he was riding his Honda 750 on Grand Avenue in Waukegan when a woman made a left turn directly in front of him. He hit her car and flew over it and landed on his head. He fractured his skull and broke his shoulder and was in a coma for several days. (Tom was not a big fan of helmets.) They had to remove a piece of his skull so that when his brain swelled up it wouldn't cause too much serious damage to it. When he was coming out of the coma the nurse asked him if he wanted cream of chicken soup for lunch and he asked if they had any cream of beer. That's when we knew that he was going to be OK. He recovered after several weeks so all of our prayers paid off.

Ten months later, in September of 1979, he decided to move to Redwood City, CA to share a two bedroom apartment with his older brother Dave, who had moved out there a couple of years earlier. On the way out there, while driving west on I-80 in Wyoming, he woke up in the middle of some farmer's field not knowing what had happened. He found out later that his Datsun 260Z had crossed the center grass median and then across two lanes of oncoming traffic, then through a barbed wire fence and finally coasted to a stop in the field. He woke up with a bad headache and his car wasn't even stuck in the field. He got back on the freeway and drove several miles until he was pulled over by a Wyoming police officer. He told the cop that his car had an exhaust leak which caused him to fall asleep. He convinced the officer that he would keep his window partially open and was allowed to continue. Tom could always think fast to keep himself out of trouble. When he got to California, after having another seizure, he had a brain scan at Stanford Hospital in nearby Palo Alto and they told him that he was a grand mal epileptic as a result of the brain injury from the motorcycle accident. They gave him a prescription for something and sent him on his way.

Several years later he went to a chiropractor because of some neck and back pain. The chiropractor took some x-rays and asked Tom when he had broken his neck. Tom said he had never broken it and was told oh yes you have and was shown the x-rays. Tom told him about the motorcycle accident which is obviously where it happened. The chiropractor was amazed that the hospital had not discovered his broken neck and also that he hadn't been paralyzed or killed because of it. Like I said, Tom has been very lucky over the years.

He worked on the railroad there until he suffered a serious injury. When he recovered and received a settlement he bought a small moving company called Budget Movers and Storage and successfully ran that until 2007. If a truck needed a clutch or brakes or whatever Tom would replace them himself since he was also a very skilled mechanic. Tom then decided in 2007 that he had had enough of California and moved to Florida. He bought a house in Kissimmee and drove limousines until he retired in 2020. Tom was always a lot of fun to be around and good for a few laughs and will be greatly missed. Some of us called him "Iggy" after Christopher Lloyd's character on the TV show "Taxi" because Tom was a big fan of his.

Tom was predeceased by his parents Robert and Catherine and is survived by his six siblings - Dave (Nanette) of Crestwood, KY, Patty Hook of Volo, John of Manteca, CA, Phil (Susan) of Antioch, Jim (Dara) of Libertyville, and Mary (Darwin) Minehart of Volo and numerous nieces and nephews as well as his beloved Dachshund Henry (and his 1970 Ford Ranchero GT). A Celebration of Life ceremony will be held on Sunday, November 5th from 1-4 PM at 1844 Alta Drive in Volo, IL.