by Roxy Triebel
treebz65@hotmail.com

Abram Van Kleeck (1871-1954) married Bertha Barringer (1874-1953) in 1891.  I believe the two individual portrait photos date from 1891, when Abram and Bertha were married.  The photo on the right of Abram and Bertha as a couple appears to date from the 1900s - perhaps taken on the occasion of a wedding anniversary?  They had seven children.  Abram was a blacksmith and Bertha, with the children's help, took in boarders.  They moved around Ulster County quite a bit - my grandmother remembers "moving days" back then.

   

C. F. Abrams' blacksmith shop where Abram Van Kleeck worked for a time.  Abram is the second man from the right.  Sometimes he had his own shop that he worked from.  According to my grandmother, this was in Kingston on Washington Avenue opposite Hurley Avenue.  Photo circa 1908.  This is a poor scan of a copy photo.  When I have time to go looking for the photo again, I will have to try for a better scan and work at it some more.

My grandmother remembers the following story about her father:

My Dad, Abram Van Kleeck, was minus his index finger on one hand.  It happened when I was very small, as I do not remember the time that it was removed.  As I remember, he got an infection in his hand from shoeing a horse and, for a time, there was a possibility of his losing his arm, but we had a very good family doctor named Van Gaasbeck.  He had but one arm himself, and realizing what a handicap it would be for a man in my Dad's occupation of blacksmith, to lose one arm, he really fought to save it.

He came daily to our house to dress the arm and, as it was very painful, he said that perhaps it would be better to give Dad a good drink of liquor about an hour before he was expected.  Dad never drank, and it didn't take much liquor to have an effect on him.  One day about an hour before the doctor was to come, my Mother gave Dad his drink, and went on about her work.  A few minutes later, my oldest sister, Roxy, thinking Mother had forgotten to give Dad the drink, also came with one for him.  Dad insisted he had taken one, but Roxy, knowing how Dad disliked the stuff, thought he was just trying to get out of taking it, and made him drink it.

It certainly had an effect on Dad, he was so happy.  When the doctor came to dress the hand, Dad insisted that the doctor dance with him.  The doctor laughed so hard he cried.  Needless to say, he went on his way and came back later in the day to dress the hand.  Guess after that, Dad didn't stand a chance of getting a second on his "medicine", as the folks checked with each other before giving it to him.

 A souvenir photo postcard of Abram and Bertha Van Kleeck at the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial in 1926.  Abram did a blacksmithing demonstration at the exhibition.

Snapshots of the blacksmith shop in "Colonial Philadelphia" where Abram demonstrated blacksmithing.

       

Signs over the smithy read:

Myron S. Teller was an architect from Kingston, NY, whose shop on Hurley Avenue produced colonial hardware used in restorations and etc.  Abram Van Kleeck had worked for him previously and worked for him again at the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial.  There may be a newspaper clipping about this - I will look for it.

 

Two poor quality photos of Abram Van Kleeck working in his blacksmith shop.  The photo on the left was taken early in the 20th century - sometime in the teens, maybe?

The photo on the right is from a newspaper clipping, probably from the Kingston Daily Freeman - there is a date written here "July 24, 1943".  The caption that goes with it reads as follows:

On July 12, The Freeman ran a picture of a "Village Smithy" with a cut line as the only blacksmith shop in Kingston.  Since then our attention has been drawn to the fact that Abram Van Kleeck is still carrying on a very active shop at 14 Apple street.  Blacksmith Van Kleeck has been at the present location for the past 22 years, where he specializes in body work, shoeing and springs.  With the limited supply of replacement parts due to the war, many of the local trucking firms have found his services extremely useful.

My relative the late Warren S. Van Kleeck remembered the following stories about Abram and his blacksmith shop:

I remember many summer days playing in his blacksmith shop on Apple Street.  I remember the time the owner of the airport just north of old Rt. 28 entrance to Kingston coming to the shop.  He said "I hear that you can make a spring that won't break."  Grandpa said "Yes, you got one I can use for a pattern?"  He gave Grandpa a sample and sped off in his convertible.  Later he came speeding back to pick up his new spring and again sped off in a cloud of dust.  About an hour later he was back and said "That was great - my student pilots have been breaking tailskids as fast as my mechanic can install them.  We put your spring on a plane and tried every way possible to break it, but it still is OK.  Make me six more."

One incident in his shop I will always remember:  I must have been about five years old at the time.  A man brought a big Belgian draft horse to the shop to be shod.  Grandpa checked the front shoes and made some measurements.  As he was starting to check the rear shoes the man warned him that the horse would sit down if he tried to check his shoes.  Grandpa said "He won't sit down on me!"  He lifted one leg and placed the hoof in position to check it.  The horse started setting down.  Grandpa dropped his tools and held up the leg with both hands.  Then he proceeded to lift the leg higher and higher until the horse was off balance and fell on the wooden floor of the shop.  The horse got up again and Grandpa lifted his back leg again to measure the shoe.  This time the horse was very cooperative.

The local National Guard brought riding horses to his shop to get new shoes.  They usually brought several at a time and would tie some outside while grandpa worked on one inside.  This was the only time I was not allowed in the shop.  The Army considered the high strung horses too risky to allow a small child near.  So the shop doors were closed and I was left outside with the other two horses that were tied under the big tree outside.  Grandma was husking corn for dinner and I was given the chore of taking the husks to the garbage pile by the chicken coop.  Seeing the horses under the tree, I decided to feed them instead.  They really liked the hard ends that were broken off the corncob.  I soon had them eating out of my hand.  So much for spooky horses!

 Bertha (Barringer) Van Kleeck and two of her grandchildren in 1931.

 Abram and Bertha Van Kleeck's 50th wedding anniversary in 1941.

 Abram and Bertha's headstone in Tongore Cemetery.  This photo was taken in May 2001.

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