Personal Background
 |
Wheaton resident since 1978 |
|
Married to Karen Annette Diersen (Gassner) since 1978 |
|
First of my ancestors to graduate from college |
|
Obtained a financial hardship draft deferment in 1971 to care for my mother and brother |
|
Worked my way through college delivering mail for the Park Forest Post Office |
|
Bought my first new car in 1966 with money earned washing dishes in the basement of the S.S. Kresges in Chicago Heights |
|
Baptized and confirmed Missouri Synod Lutheran |
|
100 percent German nation origin — ancestors were farmers who immigrated in the 1840s |
|
Hometown is Crete, Illinois |
|
Born in Chicago Heights, Illinois on September 29, 1948 |
|
Parents are John Robert Diersen (died in 1969) and Esther Dorothy Diersen (Balgemann) of Crete |
|
Interests include Corvettes, Chargers, Impala SSs, and Thunderbirds and bicycling on the Illinois Prairie Path |
|
Listed in Marquis Who’s Who since 1988 |
Early Days in Crete
I have many fond memories of my hometown of Crete, Illinois and of visits to the Balgemann farm in Grant Park, Illinois that my mother grew up on. I lived atop the Crete Hardware Store at the northeast corner of Main and Exchange between 1948 and 1954. I lived in the home my grandfather built at 1286 Wood Street between 1954 and 1972. I attended Crete Trinity Lutheran Grade School and I graduated from Hope Lutheran Grade School in Park Forest in 1962. Like my father, I suffered from a childhood hereditary bone disease that kept me from participating in sports.
Early Jobs
I washed dishes in the basement of the S.S. Kresges Store in downtown Chicago Heights during my junior and senior years at Crete Monee High School (CMHS) so that I could buy a new car and commute to college at the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC). After graduating from CMHS in 1966, I worked at Thrall Car in South Chicago Heights and I delivered mail for the Park Forest Post Office so that I could pay tuition at UIC and eventually, also pay for room and board during my junior and senior years at Northern Illinois University (NIU). After graduating from NIU in August of 1970, I worked for the Firestone Store in downtown Chicago Heights as its Retail Sales Manager. In March of 1971, EEOC forced Oldsmobile to agree to hire only African-Americans for white collar jobs to settle a discrimination complaint. Because of that, Oldsmobile rescinded a job offer that it had made me and that I had accepted to become a liaison between its factories and its dealers. Consequently, I accepted an offer from IRS to become a Revenue Officer. I continued on as a part-time salesman for Firestone until the end of 1972. I worked in IRS’s Harvey and then its Joliet offices. In September of 1972, I bought a town home in what is now University Park and lived there until 1974 when I accepted a promotion to IRS’s downtown office in Chicago and bought a condominium there.
Since 1978
I was featured in the “One Person’s Finances” article in the February 1978 issue of Money Magazine. The magazine had featured federal employees in such articles in previous issues and I thought the articles were fair. However, the article Money Magazine did on me was not only unfair, it was a hatchet job. The magazine foisted on me every negative government employee stereotype that it could think of. But far worse, it deliberately mischaracterized as being not deductible 13 graduate business and accounting courses that I had deducted. I subsequently learned that the people who run Money Magazine hate IRS and especially IRS employees who share my demographics. Their outrageous article forced IRS to disallow the courses and me to defend them. I ultimately succeeded in defending 6 of them in the Tax Court but my IRS career opportunities were over. People who disapprove of my demographics have unfairly and unethically used the Money Magazine article against me ever since.
In April of 1978, I married Karen Annette Gassner from Chicago and we bought a home in Wheaton. We have lived in Wheaton ever since. In 1980, I transferred to the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) and in 1997, I accepted the early retirement offer that GAO made to all its employees who had 25 or more years of federal service. Since retiring, I have become an arbitrator for the National Association of Securities Dealers. I have also become more active in the fight against age discrimination and reverse discrimination — please visit www.adversity.net including its “About Us” and Case No. 16 pages for information about my lawsuit against GAO. I have also become more active in the Republican Party. Since December of 1999, I have been the Republican Precinct Committeeman for my neighborhood — Precinct 9 in Wheaton, Milton Township, DuPage County, Illinois. I published the Milton Township Republican Central Committee’s (MTRCC) first website in 2000 and served as MTRCC’s Webmaster 2000-2004.
Listed in Marquis Who’s Who since 1988
Please visit: www.marquiswhoswho.net/davidjohndiersen
Diersen History in Crete, Illinois
My ancestors have lived in Crete since the 1850s. For a brief history of the heirs of Johann Heinrich Diersen in Crete, please visit: http://members.aol.com/diersen/myhomepage/heritage.html
Crete is my Hometown
Crete is my hometown! I have been a subscriber of the Crete Record for many years and I am a lifetime member of the Crete Historical Society. Karen and I visit my mother and brother in Crete every month or two and we visit my mother’s sister, Wilma Balgemann, at her farm in Grant Park several times each year. I hope to see more of my relatives and others who call Crete their hometown. Hopefully, the CMHS Class of 1966 will hold reunion in 2006, 2016, etc. Karen and I look forward to attending them!
Cars
For pictures of my three “investment” cars and information on all the cars I own, the car I would like to own, and cars I have owned, please visit: http://hometown.aol.com/diersen/myhomepage/auto.html