When Dorothy Marie Kleiber was born on May 25, 1919, in Michigan, her father, Benjamin, was 25, and her mother, Mildred, was 22. She married William F Sokel on April 2, 1942, in Henry, Ohio. They had one child during their marriage. She died on July 2, 1997, in Cheboygan, Michigan, at the age of 78.

Growing up I did not see much of Aunt Dorothy, however when I went to College (Henry Ford Community College, aka Hank High) she lived not far away and when driving home I would stop off and see how she was doing. I got to know here pretty well during these little visits and we had fun chatting about this and that. A very lovely person.

After 42 years the Detroit Red Wings broke the curse and won a Stanley Cup, here we are celebrating downtown the day of the parade. It was an extremely hot summer day and we waited downtown for hours, so we were quite parched when the parade finally ended at Hart Plaza. We did not stay for the speeches, only the parade. We went to a great bar with an outdoor barbecue and one of the Red Wings showed up to get a bratwurst off the grill so that was kind of neat.

Great time was had by all and congrats to the Detroit Red Wings. Now if we can just do something about those Lions…

Continue reading “Red Wings Championship Parade 1997” →

Christmas dinner at the Kleibers is a great way to spend the holidays. Once again the entire basement is decorated and this year we had a special guest, Santa Claus.

Dinner was served by Grandma Loretta who waited to get the best ham in Michigan, it was really delicious. Plenty of deviled eggs, pickles, and scallop potatoes rounded out the meal, along with every snack and candy imaginable.

This was about the third party we had here during the Christmas season. So much effort goes into the decorations that we felt we should have multiple parties with friends during the holiday season. Of course the main event will always be Christmas but we certainly got our moneys worth out of the Christmas basement this year.

Continue reading “Christmas 1996” →

After a 15 year absence from the Orient I found myself back, this time for my work as I flew into Beijing and then went on to Chon Quin. Probably the biggest thing I learned was there was not any Chinese food in China, at least not what they have at the China Buffet in my home town.

This was actually a visit for my work, and I spent about 10 days working but did have the one day for sight seeing and did manage to see the Great Wall of China. I remember buying the camera that took these pictures from a tourist booth and when I went to take the picture, some of them were already taken. It was a used disposable camera. I also found that everything in China is negotiable. If you go into a store in America and its marked $5 the cost is $5. If you go into a store in China and its marked $5 that’s simply where the negotiating begins. In fact, in order to close the deal and get the final 10% of the sale for my company, I had to give up the tools that I brought with me, losing them during negotiations with the Chinese Government representative.

Continue reading “Great Wall of China 1996” →

Our Christmas Party is now in its sixth year and has really become a bit of a tradition. This year we have had neighbors and friends over for multiple little parties before the big party on Christmas.

As usual, Mom cooked a huge meal and had two choices of main entree’s which was unique to me. Usually its ham, turkey, or roast beef. At this party we generally have two of the three and sometimes all three. Turkey gets the lowest preference since it is more a Thanksgiving meal.

This is the first year without my father, who past away earlier in the summer. Although he never came down to join the party (he was physically unable to but probably would not even if he was, he enjoyed people coming to see him and showing off his big screen tv). Because he pretty much lived in the living room with a medical bed and such, we began the party downstairs. Now that he passed we are going to continue having the party in the basement since we have more or less designed it around the basement.

Continue reading “Christmas 1995” →

According to our sources at Ancestry.com (currently worked by his grandson James) when Charles Thomas Kleiber was born on April 14, 1917, in Detroit, Michigan, his father, Benjamin, was 23 and his mother, Mildred, was 20. He married Loretta Rose Graf on February 15, 1941, in Wyandotte, Michigan. They had three children in 14 years. He died on May 30, 1995, in Oakwood, Michigan, at the age of 78.

Charles T Kleiber was a WW2 Veteran and father of 3 children. He was James Grandfather but died several years before James was born. Charles was a huge baseball fan and a very good player himself. He got a single in a game against Hal Newhauser who went on to become a hall of fame player. Growing up in Lincoln Park he was a pitcher and Barney McCloskey (who played for the Tigers) was his catcher. Although he was drafted by Cleveland, World War 2 came along and he never played in the minor or major leagues. However he did lead the Ford team to several world championships during his 37 year career with the Ford Motor Company.

Continue reading “Remembering Charles Thomas Kleiber 1917 – 1995” →

Christmas time is a big deal in the Kleiber family, it always had been. This year the entire basement was decorated for Christmas with about 50 animatronic carolers, angels, and elves. A full size nativity scene in a wooden manger was one of the main scenes, along with a holiday train display, a trio of angels over a nativity scene, a workshop complete with many elves, and a woodland of decorated Christmas trees with many Christmas figures gracing the landscape.

Blue tarp all around the basement set the backdrop for this Christmas adventure which was certainly inspired by Bronners display. The items that were usually in the basement were placed up against the wall and covered with Christmas lights. On top of the Christmas lights cotton snow was placed, then dozens of small Christmas trees with animatronic characters completed the scene.

Dinner rotated each year between Ham and Roast Beef. Grandma Loretta did not want to use turkey since everyone had some already at Thanksgiving.

Continue reading “1994 Christmas” →

This year we focused on adding Santas workshop and more elves. We had three already but we added a couple from Bronners which were by far the most expensive things in the display. They don’t even call the elves but they call them sprites. Anyhow they look good in the display.

We also went to a store called Kaufmanns and bought some of the Dicken Village houses from them. This is making our little Christmas village look a little more respectable as we know some collectors do this for decades.

We found a Marley and Scrooge house in the Dickens village and bought the characters including the three ghosts from the story. This is my favorite of the village houses even though it probably is the least Christmas looking of the bunch, it would be more appropriate for a haunted village but I don’t think those exist…yet.

Continue reading “Christmas 1993” →

Myself and several of my friends just joined the Knights of Columbus and the Grand Knight approached us afterwards and asked if we would like to do a Halloween Party for kids. We agreed and The Knights Dungeon was born. We named it Knights Dungeon instead of a haunted house so as to protect ourselves for insurance purposes. Turns out if you host a haunted house your insurance rates go up, but since no one ever heard of a Knights Dungeon, the K of C insurance rates were not affected.

We hosted games for the kids upstairs and every kid was a winner. We also had people dressed up as characters (IE Scooby Doo and Barney) so that people could get their pictures taken with the characters. That evening we had a Halloween Party for the adults in the basement which was “so so” attended. We hired a disk jockey and the party went well and made a little money for the council. They have already asked us if we would like to do it again next year and we thought “why not”.

In the lower lounge we set up the haunted displays, shown here was our big hit for the year, the Phantom of the Opera complete with candles and sounds.

Charles T (James Grandpa) had a male home nurse come and draw blood once a month or so and he really hated it. He said the guy was rough and always left his arm bruised.

I told him the blood tests and other tests were necessary and that the guy was not that hard on him (there was always someone in the house while this was going on), but I told him I would set up some Halloween guys (even though it was springtime) if he liked and put signs on them saying “be nice to Charles” and maybe the guy would get the message in a humorous way.

I set the props up in the living around Charles T the day of his exam and left for work. A few hours later I got a call from the hospital regarding the nurse. The hospital complained that when he went to draw blood that there were a bunch of “artificial monsters” in the room and Charles was shaking his cane at him and yelling at him that he wasn’t going to “draw any blood today”.

I apologized to the hospital and told them I would remove the monsters and rescheduled Charles T appointment for next week with a different nurse. I guess in a way it worked since he got a different nurse but I would have really loved to have seen the look on the guys face with all those monsters and Charles shaking his cane at him.