Henry was confirmed on 5/25/1888 in Freistatt, MO.

Henry, his brother August and a fellow Lutheran from Freistatt, Gustav Koenemann, went to Oklahoma to homestead, between 1902 and 1904. Henry’s wife, Anna, had a brother that had already moved to Mounds as there was land for homesteading there. So Anna’s Brother encouraged the three of them to try their fortune on the Oklahoma frontier. However there was no more homestead land available, so the men rented good farmland at Mound City but it proved to be a hard existence. In fact it created very poor health for August who had respiratory problems, and August moved back to Freistatt.

Oklahoma was open range country with cowboys driving thundering herds through, irresponsibly trampling the crops that the Germans had planted. Gus Koenemann stubbornly refusing to let the cowpokes ruin his crops, shot one of their calves, so the invading cowboys gave him more respect. Henry bought a threshing machine with a partner, successfully working the wheat harvests all the way from Oklahoma to Colorado. In Colorado, Henry learned that homesteading tracts were being issued so he found 160 acres to call home for his wife and family. It was a struggle to dig wells, build a house, and start over from the beginning. But Henry did so and became successful near Kit Carson CO.

Henry, widowed would go the sunny south to spend his winter months later in life. Driving alone to California in 1946, he picked up a lone man, a mexican, who knifed to death his benefactor as they had stopped to camp one evening. The authorities notified Henry’s children and Henry was then buried in Cheyenne Wells CO besides his wife’s grave. Nothing was done to resolve the murder or bring justice to the killer, as Alvin Kleiboeker (Henry’s nephew) said “it was at the time of WWII and Germans were discriminated against and considered suspect themselves in that area.”


The above information is all courtesy of Alvin Kleiboeker and his memoir, “Its a better world with Clover Farmers”

The following was written by John, Henry’s middle son in 1979:

Kleiboeker, Henry and Anna
John Kleiboeker, son

After a siege of crop failures because of drought and chinch bugs in eastern Oklahoma around Pawhuska, Mounds, and Foraker, my parents, with their three children, decided to move west and take a homestead. We left Oklahoma in the spring of 1914 with one covered wagon and a hay rack which was loaded with a few old implements. Dad drove one wagon and my older brother Ervin, who was nine, drove the other. I was five years old and my younger brother, Herbert, was one year old. As we went through Kansas, Dad worked in the wheat harvest, hauling bundles to a threshing machine.

The first place I remember camping in Colorado was west of Lamar, on what is now the Skelly Truck Stop on Highway 50. From there, we went on to Rocky Ford where we camped for a while.

While we were camped in Rocky Ford, Dad went to Kit Carson where he bought a homestead relinquishment from Henry Stewart and finished the homestead processing. To prove up on a homestead required building some improvements, plowing a certain amount of land, and living there for three years. Before the family moved to the homestead, Dad built a homestead shack, which was a frame building covered with tar paper and was one big room 14’ by 24’. From Rocky Ford, the family went to Eads and camped for two weeks while the homestead shack was being finished. We moved to the homestead ten miles southeast of Kit Carson in February, 1915.

After a year or so, Dad went back to Oklahoma to get some horses he had left there. He ordered an emigrant car (a railroad car which you could rent to move your possessions) out of Dexter, Kansas; and he brought back to Colorado the horses, our dog Shep, a surrey he had bought, and he finished filling the car with hedge posts. He arrived in Eads on a night when it looked as if we might have a blizzard, but he hitched a team of horses to the surrey and came home through the cold and snow anyway, getting there about midnight with Old Shep lying on his feet to keep them warm.

We had cold winters, with blizzards almost every winter. At first we only had cow chips to burn, and the house would get very cold during the nights. Frost would be on the nails sticking through the roof, and the water in the water bucket would be frozen solid. During a blizzard, we wouldn’t have enough fuel in the house to keep a fire going all day, so we would stay in bed to keep warm. Sometimes enough snow would blow through the cracks to cover the bed covers. Later, we had corn cobs to burn and, eventually, we had coal.

We attended a country school. The school house was moved several times. When it was fairly close, we walked to school. When it was far away, we rode a school bus which had curtains for windows to keep out the cold and snow! The two teachers I remember were a Miss Long and Oliver McReynolds.

My parents helped organize Trinity Lutheran Church. For many years, church services were held in the members’ homes. The first ministers were Fred Grunwald and Bunde Skov.

In the early years, Dad and Mr. Henry Troue, who homesteaded the south half of the same section, would go to Collier, Kansas to work in the wheat harvest. Usually during that time we would get some severe storms and big rains. Mom would be scared, and in the middle of the night she would get us out of bed and we would go down to Troues to go in the cave. After the storm, we would wade through the water to get back home.

Besides the Troue family, our nearest neighbor, other neighbors were the Schrammel family and the Pollreis family.

The main crops during those early days were corn, potatoes, and a small patch of cane for feed for the livestock. We sometimes had as much as ten to twelve acres of potatoes. At one time, a few neighbors got together and sent a carload of potatoes out of Kit Carson.

In 1921, we built a barn; and in 1923, we built a house.

I continued to live on the homestead until 1973, when we moved to the town of Kit Carson.

Kit Carson, 1979


Taken from “Homesteaders and Other Early Settlers 1900-1930, History of Western Cheyenne County, Colorado”, Volume II 1985. Presented by Kit Carson Historical Society.


info from Mike Meyers on Ancestry.com:

1880 Census - Living with his family in Hoyleton Twp, Washington Co., Illinois
1900 Census - He is listed as a resident in the house of his brother, Edward Kleiboeker, in Freistatt, MO.
1910 Census - 35 yrs old, living with wife Anna and children in Foraker, Big Hill twnshp, Osage Co., Oklahoma. ED 155, pg 13 B
1920 Census - Living with wife Anna and children in Cheyenne Co., Colorado E.D 59 Sht 3A
1930 Census - 56 yrs old, iving with wife Anna and children in Overland, Morris Co., Kansas. ED 64-17, sht 2b.
He filed a land patent in Cheyenne Co., Colorado on Feb. 7, 1919.
Henry was murdered in Arizona on the way back from California to see his son.....he picked up a hitch hiker and the hitchhiker killed him. This person was later captured, convicted, and sent to prison.
 
Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona · Page 11
Published February 12, 1947
Knife Slayer Gets 20 Years FLORENCE. Feb. 11 (AP) A sentence of 20 to 35 years was imposed in Pinal County Superior Court today upon Creed Edward Burks, 24 years old, convicted of second degree murder in the stabbing of Henry Kleiboeker, 70. Burks, a migrant farm worker and soldier in North Africa and Italy, killed Kleiboeker at a labor camp. The prosecution charged robbery was the motive. Judge W. E. Patterson of Yavapai county sentenced Burks.