Teter Dimner Beeber (1854-1930)

Portrait from the Phi Gamma Delta, 1899.

"He is a soundly read lawyer and is a man of scholarly literary attainment. In 1898 when his name was recently considered for the office of District Attorney of  Philadelphia, he received an endorsement of 700 names from the Bar of his own city, and his appointment to the Superior Court Bench has been everywhere received with unmixed satisfaction and enthusiasm even to an unusual degree. Beyond question, he carries with him to his new station, not only the affection of his brethren, but their unqualified confidence."

  Such was the description of Teter Dimner Beeber, one of the standout names of the late 19th-century Pennsylvania bar. Long a leading attorney in Philadelphia, Beeber was appointed to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania and served for a brief period, declining reelection. The son of Teter Dimm and the former Mary Jane Artley, Teter Dimner Beeber was born in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania on March 8, 1854. A student in the public schools of Muncy, Pennsylvania, and the Selinsgrove Academy, Beeber later enrolled at the Pennsylvania College in Gettysburg, graduating in the class of 1874.
   After his graduation, Beeber began reading law under the tutelage of his brother J. Artley in Williamsport, and in 1876 was admitted to the Lycoming County bar. He soon after relocated to Philadelphia, where for several years he practiced alone. In 1884 he joined the law firm of Carson and Jones, partnering with former state attorney general Hampton Lawrence Carson. With this firm Beeber gained "large experience as a trial lawyer", and through the 1880s and 90s gained additional repute as a Republican campaign speaker, first taking to the stump in the 1880 presidential election year.
    In 1898 Dimner Beeber's name was brought forward as a potential candidate for District Attorney of Philadelphia, an act that received the endorsement of 700 members of the city bar. Despite being passed over for that post, Beeber achieved a measure of consolation in January 1899 when he was appointed as Judge for the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, this appointment occurring to the death of Judge Howard J. Reeder on December 29, 1898. Taking his seat on the court on January 9, 1899, Beeber's time on the bench proved to be brief, as he served through the remainder of 1899 and declined to be renominated for a full term of his own, a term that would have extended ten years.

From Pennsylvania and Its Public Men, 1909.

  After leaving the bench Dimner Beeber married in Philadelphia in June 1906 to Blanche McGovney Gray (1870-1949), to whom he was wed until his death. The couple remained childless. Several business successes came Beeber's way in addition to his law practice, as he served as president of the Commonwealth Title Insurance and Trust Company, director of the Tradesman's National Bank and of the Fire Association, vice president of the Midland Pennsylvania Railroad, and was a member of the Union League of Philadelphia, of which he served as vice-president and president. Beeber would briefly return to political life in 1911 when he consented to have his name forwarded as a candidate of the William Penn Party for Mayor of Philadelphia, an election that would see reform candidate Rudolph Blankenburg (1843-1918) win the mayoralty.

   Further honors were accorded to Beeber late in his life when he was bestowed an honorary LL.D. degree from his alma mater, Pennsylvania College, in 1915. He began a long stint on the Philadelphia City Board of Education in 1910 and at the time of his death in 1930 was serving as that board's finance committee chairman. Dimner Beeber died at his Philadelphia home on June 28, 1930, aged 76, succumbing to heart failure after a day spent playing golf at the Philadelphia Country Club. He was survived by his wife and later was interred at the West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer, June 29, 1930.