John M. Tiedtke, 97, a supporter of the Toledo Museum of Art whose father and uncle founded the legendary Tiedtke's Store in downtown Toledo, died of heart failure Tuesday in his Winter Park, Fla., home.

He was a longtime resident of Florida. His father, Ernest, bought a winter home in Orlando in 1914.

Mr. Tiedtke in the late 1930s, noticing the success of U.S. Sugar Corp., bought land for sugar cane farms and later owned citrus groves. He was a long affiliated with Rollins College in Winter Park, of which he was a former treasurer.

He was known as a benefactor of the arts in central Florida.

Mr. Tiedtke was born in Toledo. He was a graduate of Culver Military Academy and Dartmouth College. He developed polio and, in the mid-1920s, "his father didn't know how he would come out of it [and] sold the store," Mr. Tiedtke's son, Philip, said.

Mr. Tiedtke recovered fully.

He was a supporter through the years of the Toledo Museum of Art, returning regularly for museum events.

"Toledo was his home. Winter Park was his home as well," his son said. "We'd travel back to Toledo every summer and spend a month in a house across Dorr Street from my grandparents'●" estate, his son said.

Mr. Tiedtke and his wife, Sylvia, married in 1948. She died Dec. 5.

Surviving are his son, Philip Tiedtke; daughter, Christine Tiedtke, and two grandchildren.

Services will be Jan. 5 at Rollins College, his son said.

Arrangements are by Baldwin-Fairchild Mortuary, Winter Park, Fla.

The family suggests tributes to the Bach Festival of Winter Park.

First Published December 24, 2004, 11:05 a.m.