The Kleiber Family Timeline

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  • St Albert Class of 1974

    James’ Dad is in this picture (top row, third from the left) from 1974, his class of 1974 taught by Miss Shea. Dad was a bit of a trouble maker in those days. Dad’s friends from those days are known as “the little friends” because they knew each other when they were little.

    St Alberts is still around, but they no longer offer the school. The school was divided into two building, the senior building and the junior building. The Senior Building was grades 5 – 8 while the junior building was 1 – 4. To the best of my knowledge they did not offer kindergarten at least during this time frame.

  • Renee Dunberger Born 1974

    Renee is the daughter of Mark and Kathy, Sister to Ron and Natalie, Granddaughter to Louise, 2nd cousin to James, and Godmother to James as well.

    Renee recently got married in Las Vegas and served her country as an army reservist. She and her husband have been to Iraq several times in service to their country. Renee retired from the military a few years back and now enjoys entrepreneurship with her husband.

    The thing James Dad remembers most about Renee working is not the military but the gift shop (Grange I think) that she used to work at, every time he walked into that store it seemed she was working behind the counter. At least you always knew where to find her on our Saturday visits to Trenton.

    As mentioned above Renee is James Godmother and Peg is Renee’s Godmother.

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  • Criss Marries Danny Merritt 1973

    The wedding took place at Dearborn City Hall and was presided over by Mayor Orville Hubbard. On the back of the photo given to us by the city is the following:

    With Best Wishes From Orville L Hubbard, LLB, Mayor of Dearborn Since January 6, 19942. A very nice gesture from the City of Dearborn for sure.

    After the services at City Hall, the wedding party went to the Dearborn Inn where a reception was held. The band played “Misty” for Criss, since it was her favorite song at the time.

    A good time was had by all!

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  • St Albert Class of 73

    James’ dad in 6th grade class photo, third row, seventh from the left.

    St Alberts is still around, but they no longer offer the school. The school was divided into two building, the senior building and the junior building. The Senior Building was grades 5 – 8 while the junior building was 1 – 4. To the best of my knowledge they did not offer kindergarten at least during this time frame.

  • Niagara Falls 1972

    We take the train ride to Toronto about once a year, sometimes just to sight see, sometimes to visit the science museum, and sometimes we stay on for the next stop which is Niagara Falls.

    While at Niagara we enjoy going under the falls as you walk through this little cave area and come out behind the mist. This is done on the American falls and it is pretty cool. Everyone wears raincoats so no one can really tell who the person is next to you since everyone is dressed pretty much the same. This can lead to some funny encounters as the person next to you may not be exactly who you think he or she should be.

  • Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Kleibers 1971

    I remember this Christmas very well because in the summer someone stole my bicycle. Now you might say to yourself what does a stolen bicycle in summer have to do with Christmas Eve at Grandmas? Well after my bike was stolen I was really dejected. When you are ten years old your bike is your main transportation to anything away from home, even if it was just next door. On this particular day my Mom (Loretta) was doing work at the Altar Society and asked me to stop by to help her take some measurements (hold the tape measure basically). Well I stopped in, held the tape measure, then went outside the Church to find someone had stolen my bike…from a Church.

    Needless to say my faith in humanity was gone and even my faith in God was in question. How could God let someone steal my bike while I was inside the Church helping his altar get the right measurements?

    Well God works in mysterious ways, I got a phone call that evening from Grandma who said she was sorry to hear about my bike and wanted to buy me a new one. I was really surprised since I knew they lived on a fixed income pension and could not really afford to spend too much extra on things, but yet they were willing to spend what money they did have on me to get a new bike. I thanked her very much but said I was ok without the bike but that I really appreciated the offer…and I did.

    I was so touched by her offer that the pain of the bike was completely gone and I hoped that someday I would be like her. Up until now as a ten year old I was very selfish and my allowance went to baseball cards, candy, and pop. That changed that summer as I actually saved up my allowance to get Grandma something really nice for Christmas. I think it was the first time I actually bought a gift for someone that was out of my own money and when I gave it to Grandma I felt great, much better than I felt receiving a gift.

    This was also the last time I would see my grandma as she died in spring of the next year, but she passed along a huge lesson in humanity to a very selfish ten year old boy (probably not the easiest thing to do).

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  • Story – The Great Fire by Aunt Criss 1971

    Mom was in the hospital for an operation on her thyroid gland. Dad, Peg and I, were almost starved to death while she was in the hospital, he was in the “let’s make dinner in the blender” stage. YUCK!

    He put eggs, catsup, vegetables and all kinds of stuff in it that I don’t even remember and no way were we going to drink that stuff, we were young but not that stupid.

    Peg tried making hamburgers in the frying pan, don’t know why but she took the hot pan over to the sink after taking the hamburgers out (hell,she could of left them in there for all I know.lol) she turned on the faucet on as hard as it would go to put water in the skillet, don’t think she had the grease out of it because the kitchen curtains caught on fire and all I heard was her calling for Dad. Now you know you have to have almost lost your mind to call Dad to a fire. lol

    You know how he was about fires and the house burning down.

    He comes in and the curtains were all a blaze, I don’t remember what he said or yelled, I think I blocked that out of my mind. I am sure Peg would remember what he said, think I ran out of the room to a safe area. lol

  • Christine Kleiber 21 Birthday (Adulthood Pics) 1971

    According to our sources at Ancestry.com (currently worked by her nephew James) when Cristine Louise Kleiber was born on August 20, 1950, her father, Charles, was 33, and her mother, Loretta, was 30. She married Kenny Selvia in 1987 and has one brother (Charles Joseph) and one sister (Margaret Ann).

    Christine held many jobs but two really stand out in my mind. The first was as a sales person at Montgomery Ward. This lead to her family buying some high end products (at the time) including a keyboard synthesizer and a Captain Fantastic Pinball Machine. Both these products provided years of fun to the Kleiber family, especially the Captain Fantastic pinball machine (we included a picture of it from the seventies in the gallery).

    The other job that really stands out is her work as a nurse with Doctor Joshowitz. The office was on Outer Drive near Southfield so it was very close to most of the family. One year she had a guillotine in the office with a sign saying “we now do vasectomies” which gives you an idea of the fun place it was, or at least as fun as a doctors office can be. We have also included a picture of the guillotine in this gallery.

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  • New Orleans 1971

    Loretta and Peg decided to take a little vacation and head to Louisiana to visit the city of New Orleans. The enjoyed the wonderful food that the city has to offer including a visit to Antoines, a very popular restaurant recognized nationally for their cuisine as they visited many points in the city including the Legendary French Quarter. If you would like to see what the Antoine menu looked like in 1971 in pdf format click the link below.

    Restaurant Antoine Menu 1971

    They also managed to find time to visit the above ground city of the dead. Early settlers in the area struggled with different methods to bury the dead. Burial plots are shallow in New Orleans because the water table is very high. Dig a few feet down, and the grave becomes soggy, filling with water. The casket will literally float. You just can’t keep a good person down! The early settlers tried placing stones in and on top of coffins to weigh them down and keep them underground. Unfortunately, after a rainstorm, the rising water table would literally pop the airtight coffins out of the ground. To this day, unpredictable flooding still lifts the occasional coffin out of the ground in areas above the water table, generally considered safe from flooding.

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  • Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Kleiber 1970

    Every Christmas eve we would go to Grandma and Grandpa Kleibers and celebrate Christmas Eve. Aunt Ginny was always there (she was sort of the caretaker of the two) and usually we would see Uncle Dons family (Uncle Don, Aunt Maryann, Mike, Bruce, and Sandy) along with Cousin Barbara and her family (Barb, husband Joe, and the twins, and sometimes Aunt Dorothy). From our family we had Criss, Peg, Chuckie, Loretta and Charles.

    Each year we would get pizza and it was always awesome. I think the pizza was better in the sixties and seventies because they heaped on the grease and butter without health concerns. After the pizza we would open gifts and everyone had a great time.

    Sometimes this was the only time we would get this side of the family all together, but it was always an annual event and at least we got together once a year.