The Kleiber Family Timeline

Author: James Dad

  • Mark Becomes A Teenager 1959

    Thirteen years ago Mark was born and almost immediately earned the reputation as the number one troublemaker in the family. Kleiber legend and lore has it that Pappy Graf was so upset with him (Mark saw him walking down the street and shouted “Hey pappy, you going to put down a few at the Bar” which was the final straw) that he waited for him around a corner with his cane (pappy could not catch the fleet footed little Mark) and when Mark walked by, hooked him with his cane and told him what his life would be like if he didn’t start treating people with respect.

    Well now this youngster is a teenager and as these picture show Mark was involved in a multitude of activities including playing in a band, playing an instrument in a parade, Scouts, fishing, camping, and many other fun activities most teens would love to do.

    Lots of pictures in this gallery including some from a photo booth which were popular in that era.

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  • Story – Camp Dearborn Paddle Boats by Aunt Peg 1959

    Camp Dearborn-oh does that take me back in time. We were living on Sherwood ct, in Dearborn, when Major Hubbard decided to buy land and make a park for all the people of Dearborn to enjoy. Our Dads boss Mr Hayford wanted his family and our family to go to camp Dearborn for a week or two. The first time we went there it seemed like a ride to the end of the earth. There were no expressways or freeways, they were not made as of yet. We did get there and it was beautiful two large gates Dad drove the car through and saw a huge sign Welcome to Camp Dearborn.

    Some things in the park were too far to walk to so Mom drove us kids to the Paddle boats. For fifty cents we could ride for an hour. Chris and I were in one boat and boy was it nice. The first time on a boat that we made go with are feet. Each boat had a number on it and when the man on dock called out your number you had to go in the ride was over. Our number was called. We headed in to the dock we were right in front of the dock so we stopped with our feet, that’s when the boat moved back and now we were away from the dock again. Chris my sister said I will climb on the front of the boat and grab the line and hop onto the dock and pull the boat in. Sounded good, but Chris forgot to grab the line. My sister made it to the dock jumping up and down that she made it. Meanwhile I’m trying to paddle but kept going in circles. I stopped I saw Mom on the Dock now and she wasn’t happy at all. I guess she got angry that the men on dock wouldn’t help little girls. I know she said a few choice words for them. One Guy got into a motor boat and came out to get me as I was in the middle of the lake by now. He grabbed the line and the boat and I were in tow. Needless to say that was my first and last time on the paddle boats with my sister.

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  • Criss First Communion 1959

    Criss celebrating her First Communion, here is a little background on this event which is sort of a rite of passage in the Catholic Church.

    The sacrament of First Communion is an important tradition for Catholic families and individuals. For Catholics, Holy Communion is the third of seven sacraments received. It occurs only after receiving Baptism, and once the person has reached the age of reason (usually, around the second grade). Catholics believe this event to be very important, as the Eucharist occupies a central role in Catholic theology and practice.

  • Story – The Short Cut by Aunt Peg 1958

    We went to a wedding reception,think it was in Wyandotte. Dad of course got drunk as usual, he usually took home a couple of glasses when he drank but this time since he paid for a gift for the happy couple he decides that he is taking home a chair and yes he did take it out of there, don’t know how but he did.

    It was raining on the way home and mom is trying to tell him how to go and he tells her that he knows a short cut and to shut up. We take this short cut and get stuck in the mud from all the rain, not knowing where the hell we are or at least I didn’t because you could not see for the rain again.

    Next day they come back for the car and it was stuck right in the middle of a baseball field.

    Dad’s short cut, he didn’t know where he was either.

  • Mackinaw 1958

    The Kleiber family heard wind of a bridge being built in Mackinaw that would connect the lower peninsula with the upper peninsula of Michigan. The bridge would be open to traffic in 1957 and the Kleiber family rented a cottage and went up to Mackinaw in 1958 to take a look see.

    Since then Mackinaw has been a very popular vacation location for Kleibers of all generations. You will find many pictures of the bridge taken by the family but these are the first.

    The Mackinac Bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere. The five-mile bridge is the world’s longest suspension bridge between cable anchorages. Fare revenues are now used to operate and maintain the Bridge and repay the State of Michigan for monies advanced to the Authority since the facility opened to traffic in 1957.

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  • Hanks Secret by Aunt Peg 1958

    On one of our weekends with the kleibers Grandpa Kleiber was telling me about working at Fords and how he met Henry Ford Sr. for the first time. I loved his stories about working at Ford Motor co. There was one story that chill me down to my bones.

    The biggest secret I ever kept till now. My Grandfather was a tool and die as he put it a skilled worker for Ford Motor Co. I still don’t know what a tool and die was but I know he must have made a lot of money doing it. Grandpa said Fords went into Germany before the war to build Automobiles cause it was cheap labor over there. Fords built auto plants there and Hired Jews to work in their plants, but they paid the Nazi’s the money. Grandpa why didn’t they pay the Jews they did the work? Grandpa said at that time Jews were being put to death, they could live if they worked for Fords. Grandpa than said when war broke out Fords left Germany, but left the factories they built and all the scrap iron there too. The Germans turn the factories into War factories instead. Why Grandpa didn’t they destroy the stuff instead of leaving it for the Nazi’s? Grandpa said it had something to do with a deal they had made with the Nazis to build there in the first place. Mom and Dad had come to take us home so we said our goodbyes and went home.

    At home mom went to the backyard to weed and plant flowers. I went into the living room to ask Dad about what Grandpa had told me. After I told dad he grabbed my arm, dad your hurting me. Dad said Don’t ever repeat that in this house again. Your Grandfather should have never told you that. Your Mother will not understand we could lose everything this house, everything. You have to promise me that you will never say a word about this again. I promise Dad. I never said anything about it again. Years Later Dad die, and I was much older. I was watching the late news on channel 50 when they told the same story that Grandpa had told me. The story I promise never to say. I was so afraid Mom would fine out. One Morning I heard Mom let out one of her blood curling Screams. I ran to the kitchen and asked what’s wrong? Mom was reading the Paper, she pointed to were she wanted me to read. The paper had printed the whole dirty story on a back page. Mom always read page by page of the newspaper. Finally Mom said I just bet your Dad knew all about this! I would have made him quit or I would have divorce him right on the spot. I told Mom we will never know Dad is dead. Your right, but there is something I can do. Dad had stock in Fords and never cash it in. Mom had the stock now. Your right Mom sold the stock. I knew she would miss those dividends that she got from the stock, but this had to be done. I Think back on this now and I realize that is the reason I could tell my brother about the Holidays. The story of the Easter Basket, I knew a dirty secret just between me and my Dad.

  • Mary Landis Born 1958

    When Mary Elizabeth Landis was born in 1958, in Montgomery, Alabama, her father, William, was 30, and her mother, Judith, was 21. She married Charles Joseph Kleiber on September 5, 2002, in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. They have one child. She had three brothers.

    Mary is the daughter of Howard and Judith, Sister to Bill, Wife to Chuck, and Mother to James. She is one of the sweetest people I know and is always trying to help others. She is a great mother to James and we all love her very much.

    Mary has worked in real estate and also worked in restaurants, both managing them and as an employee. Like her father and brother, Mary is very knowledgeable about cars and automobiles, although she stops short of working on them. Her favorite car is a Nash Metropolitan because she used to ride in one to school when she was a kid. She does web designing and has done very well in that area both creatively and financially. She also enjoys running a household and is an excellent cook for James and myself.

    We would not know what to do without her.

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  • Story – The Boxer by Aunt Criss 1957

    Each week usually meant a visit to Trenton. The adults would play cards upstairs while the kids played in the basement. Mark and Peg used to pick on me because I was the youngest and they were older and bigger than I was. We would get in all kinds of things in that basement in Trenton while they were all upstairs playing cards. Uncle Harry and Grandma Graf were still alive and dad would go over there too and play cards.

    Grandma Graf always had a fifth of whiskey in her bedroom for when she had a cold ,she would take a drink of it,funny that dad always thought he was coming down with something when he went to Trenton just to get a drink of her whiskey.

    We were down stairs as usual and Mark and I put on Boxing gloves and he accidentally hit me hard so I started to cry and Mark tried to get me to stop crying before they would hear me upstairs. He would do everything,he would tell me to hit him back and I did as hard as I could,which was not much with how little I was and he would act like I really hit him hard and would fall on the floor and act like he was really hurt but I still kept crying.

    The parents finally yelled down to us to see what was going on (after they got done playing out their hands, of course). We went up stairs and when Uncle Harry found out what had happened he started kicking Mark down the hall, was like a cartoon, he would kick and mark would jump and this went on all the way down the hall.

    I didn’t know what he did to him after that but I did stop crying. lol

  • Story – The Island by Aunt Criss 1956

    One year we vacationed on an island that was far removed from civilization. We had to row a boat over to get there or to go to a store, don’t know where Dad found that fantasy island, the only fun thing in that town when you were on dry land was the snake pit. We had an aluminum boat to row back and forth to get the suitcases and any groceries over there,of course we kids thought it was cool. Dad took our only transportation over to land and that was the boat, don’t know what would have happened if someone got hurt and needed to go to the hospital.

    Big rain storm that night, lightning the whole bit, lit up the whole little island. There was a full size homemade bunkbed in one room that Peg and I slept on the bottom and Mark slept on the top which made his mattress come just a couple of inches from our noses so he liked that and would jump up and down on it a lot. lol

    Around 3 in the morning, we hear yelling “LORETTA, LORETTA”, Mom gets up and in the lighting and rain that you could not see in front of your face for the rain, here was Dad, drunk, rowing the aluminum boat yelling for mom to turn a light on because he didn’t know where the island was.

    He gets in finally and someone put a rubber spider on the curtains to be funny and Dad saw it and took a broom to the curtains and was hitting them so hard that they fell down.

    Mark, Peg and I go fishing the next morning and Uncle Harry let me use his pole, I was so excited that he would entrust me with it. So we are sitting with our poles in the lake and Mark of course wants to catch this big turtle that he has been hearing about. We came close,but it bit on my line (or rather uncle Harry’s line) and broke the line. I didn’t want to go back in and tell Uncle Harry that I broke his line but he was understanding as usual and he did not get mad.

    Peg had a new watch that dad had bought her and she was so proud of because he bought her something. It was a type that you wound up by moving your wrist so Peg rowed me and her around the lake and back. The hands were going around so fast when we got back we could not keep track of it, needless to say it broke from that and Dad was not too happy.

    My birthday fell over those weeks that we were on Alcatraz and all I got was a ring from the snake pit with a plastic snake on it.

  • Pegs First Communion 1956

    Margaret Ann Kleiber celebrated her First Communion. here is a little background on this event which is sort of a rite of passage in the Catholic Church.

    The sacrament of First Communion is an important tradition for Catholic families and individuals. For Catholics, Holy Communion is the third of seven sacraments received. It occurs only after receiving Baptism, and once the person has reached the age of reason (usually, around the second grade). Catholics believe this event to be very important, as the Eucharist occupies a central role in Catholic theology and practice.

    Traditions of celebration surrounding First Communion usually include large family gatherings and parties to celebrate the event. The first communicant wears special clothing. The clothing is often white to symbolize purity, but not in all cultures. Often, a girl wears a fancy dress and a veil attached to a chaplet of flowers or some other hair ornament. In other communities, girls commonly wear dresses passed down to them from sisters or mothers, or even simply their school uniforms with the veil or wreath. Boys may wear a suit and tie, tuxedo, their Sunday best, or national dress, with embroidered arm bands worn on the left arm and occasionally white gloves.

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