Johann Kleck & Victoria Failer, George S
“Archaeologists - they gather up the facts, piece the jigsaw together, workout how we lived and find the buildings we lived in. But what we do, that’s different. We unearth the scattered memories, mine for stories, fill in the personality. We’re time travelers.” “The Detectorists,” Mackenzie Crook and Andrew Ellard, 2017 Dedicated to Uncle Pete (17 February 1928 – 13 August 2015) Preface In 2016 I received nine boxes of materials concerning the lives of the Kleck family from the mid- 19th century to the 1980s. It included documents, photographs, letters, both typed and handwritten, notebooks, cancelled checks, wills, and many other Kleck-related items. All of the materials had been accumulated by my uncle, Pete Kleck, for many years. In 2014, Pete called me and asked if I would take the materials and I told him I would. Less than a year later, in October 2015, Pete died. His son, Wayne, his widow, Patricia, and I had agreed that at some point the “Kleck Archives” would be forwarded to me for inspection, restoration as needed, suitable retention and organized for the Kleck family. Wayne, Patricia and I all appreciated Pete’s interest in preserving the story of the Klecks through the materials in those nine boxes. Wayne was diligent in his preparation of the materials for shipment and they were successfully transported halfway across the country. Since then I have been trying to identify, preserve and digitize the materials, with a definite priority given to older and more important documents and pictures. In most cases the items required interpretation and further research.
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