The Kleiber Family Timeline

Category: General Day to Day

General Events

  • James Dad Receives Knight of the Year Award 2000

    James’ Dad got the Knight of the Year award from the Knights of Columbus for the time period of 1999 thru 2000, primarily for his work on the Knights Dungeon Haunted House and the Millenium 2000 New Years party.

  • City Beautification Award for Christmas Display

    For Christmas we setup a display in our front window with an animated life size Santa. This is something we do every year to one extent or another. But this year was special as we added for the first time some icicle lights to the display. We did not really think much more of it, except trying to remember to turn it on at dusk during the holiday season. Someone must have driven by from the city and seen it and they gave us the “City Beautiful Commission Award”.

    We were all surprised and enjoyed our little token of fame, even though they spelt the name wrong, it was still a very nice sentiment from city hall.

    The letter said they were going to have a run off of all the houses and a winner would be announced in the paper, but since we were never contacted we assumed it wasn’t us that won the overall prize.

  • Renee Graduation 1992

    Renee Graduated from Trenton High School on a beautiful day in 1992, following in the footsteps of her brother and father.

    The current school complex was constructed in 1953 on a plot bounded by West, Westfield and Charlton roads and Edsel Drive. The school was built to handle a surge in students following World War II and the expansion of western Trenton, which was quickly expanding. The building was known as West Road Elementary School and housed elementary school students until Hedke, Anderson, Foley and Owen elementary schools opened in the 1950s.

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  • Ron Graduates High School 1987

    Ron Graduates from Trenton High School in 1987, following in the footsteps of his father.

    The Trenton High School complex was constructed in 1953 on a plot bounded by West, Westfield and Charlton roads and Edsel Drive. The school was built to handle a surge in students following World War II and the expansion of western Trenton, which was quickly expanding. The building was known as West Road Elementary School and housed elementary school students until Hedke, Anderson, Foley and Owen elementary schools opened in the 1950s.

  • Loretta Kleiber’s Retirement Party at Oakwood Hospital 1987

    Loretta worked for Oakwood hospital until 1987 when she retired. She was a switchboard operator and worked the midnight shift, midnight till 8am, so she had lots of stories of the events that went on in the wee hours of a hospital. If you ever called Oakwood hospital between midnight and 8 am odds are that it was Loretta who you spoke to on the phone. When she retired they threw her a small retirement party at the hospital.

    The family always thought that it was strange that someone who had such trouble with their hearing would be the one answering calls at a hospital. I think the headset made all the difference.

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  • James Dad Goes To Alaska

    James Dad went to Alaska for cold weather training, leaving from the high tech test bed at Ft Lewis, Dad remembers flames shooting out of the engine when landing and how the nose hairs froze instantly upon stepping off the plane.

  • James Dad Going Away Party 1980

    With summer coming to a close in August, James Grandma had a farewell party for James Dad as he was getting ready to go into the army and do basic training at Fort Dix New Jersey in early September.

    The party took place at Lake Erie in Monroe Michigan (the state park just east on exit 15 on I75) on a perfect summer day and many of James Dads “little friends” (a nickname to Dads friends who he met in first grade, hence the name little friends) were on hand to give James Dad a hearty send off (the keg of beer helped a little as well).

    The party was a big success and James Dad made it on time to Ft Dix where basic training awaited him.

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  • Charles J Kleiber (James Dad) Graduates High School

    James’ Dad graduated high school way back in 1979, he remembers walking almost a mile to class most days until he got his drivers license and car, then his first speeding ticket in that order. In his senior year, James’ Dad would open up “Leo’s Fruit Market” on Van Born road each morning at 6am, then go to gym class which he arranged to be his first class so he could shower after work.

    Many great times at this school, working on floats, going to football games (our team was 1-10 senior year or something like that), and of course learning. Dad took his first electricity class while at Annapolis which would end up being his chosen field (sort of, actually electronics engineer but in order to do electronics you have to do electricity first) during the military and civilian life.

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  • Story – Gallon of Fun by James Dad 1976

    During the summer of 1976 we had 3 tents in the backyard and it was very common for my friends to spend the night pretty much whenever they wanted to. We were 16 at the time and the girl next door had a bunch of girlfriends for us and a pool so all was right with the universe.

    I remember watching the All Star game that year, Ron LeFlore from the Tigers led off the game with a single and the sounds of “Frampton Comes Alive” filled the summer air.

    One day, one of my friends, Bob Welker, was working at the K of C in the kitchen and saw that the beer tap was left unprotected so he grabbed an empty plastic gallon milk jug and filled it up with beer. He then hid the gallon of beer until he got off, then put the gallon in his newspaper route bag and rode it over to the tents in the back yard.

    We had no way of hiding an entire gallon of anything in the tents and the only thing big enough to cover it up was a matress we had in one of the tents so we slid the gallon of milk under the mattress and except for a small lump you could not really notice anything (A combination of a lumpy mattress and an unlevel back yard).

    That evening was the night we watched the All Star game and I had a few friends over to watch it with. All of a sudden dad comes into the tent to see how we were doing. We told him fine and said we were having a good time watching the game and how cool it was of Ron Leflore to lead off with a single.

    Just that moment he decided to sit down, since all the chairs were taken in the tent he sat on the mattress that was covering the beer. As we watched this in horror we saw little trickles of beer begin flowing out from under the mattress. These actually began to puddle and we were certain we were going to be busted. Finally after what seemed an eternity, dad got up and left the tent and we quickly cleaned up the mess we made as Bob Welker shed tears of anguish for his once glorious gallon of beer.

    Needless to say we never had any more gallon jugs in the tent that year.

  • Summer Tent 1975

    After graduating from St. Albert’s James’ Dad had fun with a tent in the back yard where his little friends from St. Albert’s could get together. Don’t worry, the bottles are actually empty.

    The tent set the standard for the next few years as James’ Dad and his friends did much camping in tents including Hell Michigan and Leamington Canada.

    The tent was purchased by James’ Grand Dad who spent time with James’ Dad in the tent listening to baseball games on the radio.