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Herbert Anton Kliewer
September 20, 1917 - December 7, 2007
Funeral Services for Herbert Anton Kliewer, 90, will be held at 1:00 p.m., Monday, December 10, 2007, at the Mennonite Brethren Church of Fairview. The Reverends Brad Penner and Leonard Vogt will officiate. Burial will follow in the South Mennonite Brethren Cemetery. Arrangements are by Fairview Funeral Home, Inc.
Viewing will be 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Sunday, and 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Monday at Fairview Funeral Home Inc.
Herbert Anton Kliewer was born September 20, 1917 to Abraham A. and Lizzie (Karber) Kliewer in their farm house four miles south and one mile east of Fairview, Oklahoma, the tenth of twelve children. He died at the Fairview Regional Medical Center on December 7, 2007.
Among the many who celebrate his life and mourn his passing are the members of his immediate family, including his wife of 69 years, Hannah Inez (Martens) Kliewer; his daughters Donna Beth and Marcia Anne and their husbands, respectively, Paul Wiebe and Dick Shewey; his grandchildren Keith and Jill Wiebe, Catherine Ann Gingerich, Andy and Kerry Shewey, Stan and Rebecca Shewey and Dale and Shawna Shewey; and his great grandchildren Jacob and Ryn Wiebe, Nathan, Matthew and Hannah Beth Gingerich, Clay and Grant Shewey, and Kierra, Vance and Kyra Shewey.
Herb's eleven siblings; his brothers David, Abe, Jonah, Ed, Ruben, Stanley and a brother who died at birth and his sisters, Bienna Bartel, Martha Epp, Marietta Warkentin and Elda Neufeld; and his grandson-in-law Kenneth Gingerich, preceded him in death.
Growing up in a large farm family with cousins of many ages on farms to all sides meant a life filled with chores and a life of great fun for Herb. His family used horses in fieldwork and recreation when he was growing up. He learned with his brothers and sisters to cut "shtruck" for firewood as well as tend the many other chores involved in farming through times filled with abundance as well as scarcity. He learned with his brothers that an umbrella held aloft did more for the imagination than in reality in breaking the jump from a hayloft to the ground below. He remembered to the end the borscht, zwiebach and chicken noodle and bean soups his mother and sisters prepared for his family's evening meals.
Herb began his schooling in Banner School, roughly a mile from home. He continued his formal education, first at the South Fairview Mennonite Brethren Church's Bible School, then at Fairview High School, then at Tabor Academy in Hillsboro, Kansas.
A critically important part of Kliewer family life on the farm, and later, throughout his life was adherence to the teachings and practices of the church. Herb was about nine when he was baptized in a sandpit southeast of Fairview. He started singing in his church's male chorus at fifteen, started directing (in which capacity he continued over the next twenty years) at eighteen. He and his brothers sang together for church and family functions. He taught Sunday school and served as a deacon and on the church's board of trustees, and was a member of the Fairview Fellowship Home board. All along, he contributed most generously to his church's local as well as more distant service and other projects.
Herb married Hannah Inez Martens on April 24, 1938 in the South Fairview Mennonite Brethren Church where they first met. Herb and Inez first farmed on a place a mile south of the Kliewer home place. In changing times and circumstances, they built the Don-Mar Motel (named after their daughters) in Fairview in 1950. After running the Don-Mar for a little more than a decade, they bought and managed the Coast-to-Coast store for several years. Herb later entered the Behlen steel building construction business, and, with his crew, between 1962 and 1995 built more than 200 commercial, farm and other buildings in and around the Fairview area.
Herb enjoyed construction: designing, planning and building. Until his last years, he kept farming as at least an important side interest, always beaming with energy when once again he had the chance to put "Old Red," his combine, back to work. Harvest, when it came, took precedence: "Cutting wheat, bring supper" was the note he once left on the kitchen counter when harvest started. At 80, perched precariously, he fixed the long ago broken wing of the decorative eagle atop the building across the street from Mom's Daylight Donuts along Main Street, Fairview. He was active in several civic organizations. One of his fondest recollections was his at-cost construction of a church on behalf of the Mennonite Brethren of Cache, Oklahoma (in relation to which the congregation there in the spring of 2007 invited him to return, at age 89, to direct the Fairview Mennonite Brethren Church's male chorus in a commemorative service). Herb will be remembered always, by those who knew him, for never shirking or cutting corners in any way when it came to what needed to be done.
Herb and Inez enjoyed traveling in their retirement years. He spent his final years in the Fairview Fellowship Village in devoted attention to "the love of his life," Inez.
Memorials may be made to the Fairview Mennonite Brethren Church or Tabor College with Fairview Funeral Home Inc acting as custodian.
Condolences may be made at www.fairviewfuneralhomeinc.com
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