The Kleyböcker Hof

  The first time the Kleyböcker Hof is mentioned in any written history is  1415. A record in the Domarchiv in Osnabrück, Volume V, Page 234,  mentions that the head Abbess of Convent Rulle, Hille of Eckern, visited  the "Cleybokers" house as well as others on January 25, 1415. The  Kleyböcker Hof was a feudal estate farm that was obligated to provide  payments to the true landowners, the Bishop of Osnabrück, of which  Convent Rulle was a sub-order of this Osnabrück Bishopric. The Hof is  located in the small cluster of farms called Hinnenkamp which is just  North and West of the town of Vörden. In 1370, Vörden was founded as a  monastery fortress. The name Vörden is from the old Saxon word for ford,  as in fording a river. Here, the main road between Osnabrück and Bremen  crossed the river Aue. A special exemption was granted in 1378, whereby  all people who wanted to settle around the fortress were granted a tax  or tithing exemption for 10 years. The usual 10% of all proceeds of the  farm was not charged for those first 10 years, which motivated many to  establish these feudal farms on the wet, boggy land.

The  Hof is listed continuously in the "Lehnbücher" from 1442 to 1775, which  are the tax registers of the various farms that were fiefs or  inheritable tenancies. In the German feudal system, all land was owned  and controlled by either the King or Prince of the area or the Catholic  Church. In the Kleyböcker Hof case, the church owned the land. The  Kleyböcker family, who operated this farmstead, owed the church, usually  10% of the proceeds of the farm each year. There were also taxes if  someone got married or died, and especially when the Hof was given to a  son once the farmer was too old to farm or had died. The size of  the Kleyböcker Hof in the 15th century was listed as 83 Morgens. A  morgen is the amount of land one man could plow behind an ox in a single  day. In 1945, the farm was listed as 70 hectares, or 173 US acres.

The  Hof farmer was called a "Colon," which uses the same Latin root word  from which we get the English word, Colonel. The Colon operated the Hof  and managed the farming using serfs, or what in German was called  Heuerlinge or Heuerleute. These people were almost slaves of the Colon,  as they were obligated to a lifelong service contract to him. In return,  the Heuerlinge were provided a place to sleep, most likely in the hay  mows above the animals in the Hof, and meals, which were often quite  meager. If you were the child of a Heuerling, you were destined to live a  life as a peasant, and all your progeny were the same. The Colon and  his family lived in the apartment as shown at the top of the diagram.  The Colon was not allowed to subdivide the Hof farm. This meant that one  of his sons would inherit the Hof and become the next Colon, but the  other sons were destined to become Heuerleute. Generally, the written  history shows that the oldest Kleyböcker son inherited the Hof. But  sometimes, in certain generations, other middle and youngest sons have  received the Hof. If one of the daughters got lucky, they might marry a  Colon at another farm, but most likely they would also become  Heuerleute. The Kleiboeckers who made it to America were all the  Heuerleute class.

The back of the house was renovated later in 1958 by Christian Menke's great, great-grandson Rudolf Kleyböcker. The top half of the back retains the original fachwerk brick and timbers of the original 18th century house, with 4 different lines of inscriptions and the Kleyböcker Coat of Arms.

The top inscription: Unser tagliches Brot gib uns heute / Give us this day, our daily bread.

Below this, the Second Inscription: Achte stets der Väter Art, Gott segne den, der sie bewacht / Honor your heavenly Father's will, for he blesses those who do

The Third Inscription: Allzeit frohlich ist gefaehrlich, allzeit traurig ist beschwerlich drum (darum) so lass all dein Tun immerfort in Frohsinn ruhn. Living always happy is a dangerous course. Living always sad is troublesome. Instead, let your life be always spent in simple, quiet joyfulness.

The Fourth and bottom Inscription: So Lange noch die Eichen wachsen in stolzer Kraft um Hof und Haus, so lange stirbt in Niedersachsen die alte Stammesort nicht aus / As long as these oak trees grow tall and mighty, all around our farm and house, our Lower Saxony roots and culture will never die away.

This last inscription is a motto from the local “Heimatbund” of Niedersachsen or Lower Saxony. Supposedly written by Friedrich Tewes (1859-1931). Tewes was an author, librarian, and museum director who founded the “Heimatbundes Niedersachsen.” This is the local historical / homeland association of the state, which honors the cultural roots, heritage, and traditions of the Lower Saxony area. These Homeland associations, which are throughout Germany and Europe, were founded in the 19th and early 20th centuries. There was an incredible loss of cultural practices and memories after the many wars and occupations by foreign powers in the late 1700s and continuing up to WW1 and WW2.

Carol, Don, and Karen Kleiboeker are standing in front of the cornfield directly behind the house. Kent and Donna Schnelle standing by beech trees growing on the Kleyböcker farmstead. In German, beech trees are named "Bücher" or "Boeker" which makes up part of the Kleiboeker name. See Family Crest for more info. In addition, beech trees were used to create early written records, as it is conjectured that the earliest Indo-European writings may have been carved on beech wood. The Saxon, German, English, Slavic, and Russian languages all use the same word for book and beech tree. In German, for example, the book is "Buch" and the beech tree is "Buche". Also of interest is the word buckwheat. Buckwheat is a plant that was grown in the moors (swampy lowlands) near the Kleyböcker Hof. Buckwheat in German is "Buchweizen" or literally wheat from the Buche tree. The small kernels of grain growing on the buckwheat plant (which is native to Southeast Asia) are not related at all to the Buche or Beech tree but reminded Germans of the taste of the nut from the Beech tree, with which they were quite familiar. So the Kleyböcker name has ties to Buckwheat too!

Hella (née Pieper) Kleyböcker showing Dennis Kruse the beechnut from the trees on the Hof. Beechnuts were collected and eaten throughout history. Beechnuts are a goldmine of healthy calories, with roughly 50% fat and 20% protein. To compare, acorns are only about 7% protein. They were used to making coffee and ground up to create flour as well. But mostly the beech trees were used as building material. Their close grain and smooth bark made them an excellent source of hardwood timbers used to build the houses and barns. Most of the timbers between the brickwork on the house most likely came from the beech trees.

Unique to the Kleyböcker Hof is its own cemetery. Most farmsteads in the area do not have a cemetery. There have always been governmental restrictions on who can operate a cemetery, and most were strictly regulated to churches only. As the Kleyböcker Hof is quite old, it seems that the cemetery was allowed for historical reasons. It is not clear exactly how many are buried here, but the more recent burials all have distinctive markings, as shown in these pictures.