Marianna (Dobeli) Schreiber (1834 - 1928)

Born 14 Dec 1834 in Holderbank, Lenzburg, Aargau, Switzerland

Wife of Samuel Kleiner — married 25 Sep 1857 in Madison County, Illinois, USA

Wife of Joseph Schreiber — married 20 Nov 1879 in Riley County, Kansas, USA

Descendants

Died 16 Feb 1928 at age 93 in Peyton, El Paso, Colorado, USA

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Summer Seely [send private message]

Marianna (Dobeli) Schreiber is of Swiss descent

Biography

• It appears that the name Döbeli was interchangeable with the spelling Töbeli

She married Samuel Kleiner. Samuel and Marianna had 10 children (9 of them survived to adulthood.) Samuel died at the age of 43, in 1876. Their youngest child, Emil, was a year old at the time of his death. Baby Emil also died, 8 months later.

Kleiner children: Louisa, Edward, Karl (Charles), Wilhelm (William), Herman, August (Gus), Otto, Joseph, Sophia, Emil.

Marianna married Joseph Schreiber in 1879, but he died a year later. She spent 48 years as a widow, and raised her children alone. She died in 1928, at the age of 93. Her 9 surviving children also lived very long lives.

Newspaper Article from 1952 about her children:

Mrs. Henry Fosha of Peyton, Colo., is crowding the 80-year-old mark - but she was definitely the “baby” in the family gathering at the Charles Kleiner home in Rocky last Sunday.

(Sophia) and her five brothers, the oldest 91 years old, were together over the Labor Day weekend - and came up with some interesting statistics when they got their pencils out and started figuring.

They couldn’t help being just a little impressed with their own record, the admitted. For one thing, they discovered they have already lived a total of 514, or an average of 85 years apiece.

They did some other arithmetic problems and found that their children add up to 29, their grandchildren to 62 and great-grandchildren to 45.

But mostly, they spent the time reminiscing going back as far as their childhood days in Illinois. The Civil War was a little too early for most of them - but a part of their reminiscing had to do with the Civil War president, Abraham Lincoln, and their own father, Samuel Kleiner.

Their father was a band director and, in that capacity, accompanied Lincoln when he “stumped” the country in 1860 in his campaign for the presidency. None of the group was old enough to actually remember the campaign but they had heard about it so often that the details were clear in their minds - the 12-man band and the band wagon drawn by four white horses.

When it came to first hand stories of their childhood, it paid the fellow telling the tale to be sure of this facts when he started, because there were five other sharp memories to check up on him. It was the first time the entire family had been together since 1928 when their mother died, at the age of 94. There were not quite so many this time, two brother and a sister having died since then.

The four visiting brothers made the trip here from Kansas for the reunion and (Sophia) came from Colorado. (The four visiting) brothers are Will, 89, Herman, 87, Ott, 83, (all of Riley, Kansas) and Gust, 85, of Jewell, Kansas.

They are of Swiss descent, both their mother and father having been born in Bern, Switzerland. All were born in Illinois, with the family moving to Kansas when the youngest, (Sophia), was eight years old. All have stayed close to home except Charles who moved to Oklahoma in 1910, first living on a farm near Rocky and for the last 30 years in Rocky where he followed the carpentry trade. He and (Anna), 87, celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary in the summer.

One of their sons, Rufus, C. Kleiner, is Hobart’s T. & I. carpentry instructor and has consistently won statewide recognition, first for his plan of teaching carpentry by building a house, and later by winning state contests.

The weekend reunion was the result of several year’s effort on the part of younger generations in the family to get the six together. It was in deference to Charles Kleiner’s years - he is the 91 year old one - that they decided to come to Oklahoma.

There was no reason for selecting the Labor Day weekend except as one of the sons put it, “We got them all in the notion at the same time and started out before they could change their minds.”

To the inevitable question about their theories on longevity, they had a quick answer, several of them in fact. You could just about take your choice, - smoking a pipe or not smoking, hard work or taking it easy, and so on, ad infinitum.

One of the few things they all agreed on was that it helped to be born in the Kleiner family where living a long time seems to be rapidly becoming a habit.

There was a difference of opinion on the desirability of living a long time - but most agreed that as long as they’re having as much fun as they were last weekend, they’re in favor of it.

One expressed the opinion that “when we get old, the best thing is just to lie down and die.” He was promptly taken to task. Another brother chuckled later - “I told him just to lie down and die if he wanted to, and he couldn’t do it.”

-Kiowa County, Oklahoma, Star Review. ______________

Not included in the story, but noteworthy:.

Their two brothers Joseph and Edward both lived to the age of 77, and sister Louise (Riniker) lived to be 83. Also impressive ages.

Joseph's daughter, Frances Marie Kleiner Doone, lived to be 92, and her three sons are all already past the age of 72.

- added by Joseph's great-great-granddaughter, Summer Cooper on 11-23-2013.

Sources

• First-hand family sources

• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/21221769/mary-anna-schreiber

• http://www.inksauce.com/gene/doebeli.htm

• • • • I would like to thank my 4th cousin, Ian Swart, for sharing the Kleiner family photos. -Summer Seely Cooper