Month: January 1953
Michigan Memorial Lots Purchased 1953
Charles Thomas Kleiber (James Grandpa) purchased 6 lots at Michigan Memorial for $920 plus $10 carrying fee. Charles put $5 down and agreed to pay $15 per month to pay off the balance (no interest so long as the payments were on time).
At the time, the Kleiber family was living at 1089 Lindberg in Wyandotte Michigan and Michigan Memorial was over 25 years old and located in nearby Flat Rock so it seemed to be a perfect match. Shown in this picture is Peg and Criss looking down at the first person buried in the plots, James Great Grandpa Graf.
Remembering “Pappy” Graf 1887 – 1953
Pappy Graf is James Great Grandfather, Father to his Grandmother Loretta.
When Joseph George Graf was born on March 18, 1887, in Schönfeld, Lower Austria, Austria, his father, Joseph, was 33 and his mother, Katherine, was 30. He had one son and two daughters with Rose Margaret Huth between 1920 and 1924. He died on January 2, 1953, in Wyandotte, Michigan, at the age of 65, and was buried in Flat Rock, Michigan.
Pappy was very creative and used to make the childrens gifts by hand. He also created beautiful miniature village displays that were so popular in the neighborhood that the press would come out and photograph them for the newspaper. All of the houses in the display he would make by hand. He would setup this display around Christmas time which created a tradition that lasted for decades in the family of having displays set up at Christmas time.