Writen to Oslo, Norway Kleiser's... 1930's
It was interesting to learn that you have been wanting to look up our Kleiser ancestors. Without effort on my part I have run into some of the descendants of my grandfather's two oldest brothers who came to this country when their father wanted to immigrate here. His wife refused to go aboard the ship when she first saw it, and he then sent the two oldest boys over, and with his wife and five children returned to Schwarzwald. Well you probably know the story. Of the descendants of the two boys who came here I know the one branch that finally settled in California having gone there during the 1849 gold rush.
One of the descendants GEORGE KLEISER I met one day when my tailor in New York made an appointment for me to try on a new suit, he asked me to be punctual for the appointment. When I arrived there he took me to one of the booths and told me to take my suit off and he would bring the new one. He returned shortly and asked me to step out of the booth, when I objected as I was in my underwear, he said "Oh come on out there is no one here", I stepped out and he pulled aside the curtain of the booth alongside of me and there was a man, also in his underwear. The tailor said Mr. Kleiser meet Mr. Kleiser and walked off. Well we became acquainted just as we were, in our underwear. He invited me to come and visit him in California after we had settled and he also was a descendant of great grandpa in Schwarzwald. Constance and I were out in California and visited with them later and met several of the family out there. George Kleiser proved to be quite a man. He started out as a dentist, but turned something that would make money for him while he slept, he told me. He built up the largest advertising firm in the country. Which he sold in 1952 for seven million dollars and then he promptly died.
A third generation of the other brother GRENVILLE KLEISER, was in New York when I was there, he and I were the only Kleiser's in the telephone book of eight million people. He and I also were the only Kleisers in Who's Who in America. He was a poet, lecturer and linguist. I was told several times that we look much alike, but somehow never did meet, though we had mutual friends.
There are some of uncle Karl Kleiser's, Ida's father and uncle Johan's descendants in Elgin, Ill., as you know, also in Philadelphia, PA.
A lady came in to see me in my studio in New York some years ago. She was the wife of a banker in the middle west. She was born a Kleiser and evidently well married. She asked me to come and see them but I forgot the husbands name. Also, during the depression 1932 a man came in to see me and introduced himself as a Kleiser, looked so much like my father that it shocked me. He had just come to this country and was short of money to go where he had been promised a job. He told me that there are hundreds of Kleiser's in Schwarzwald. I helped him but never heard from him again....
Lornetz Kleiser
ANY QUESTIONS OR FEEDBACK, EMAIL ME GWCLISER@GMAIL.COM
