Our Family

Joseph Kiene family

– My father’s parents, Joseph Kiene and Marie Struby, both came to Sacramento from Brunnen, Switzerland around the turn of the 19th century. They met here at a Swiss social group and later married having two children, Alfred and Marie.

Archie Anderson family

– My mother’s parents, Archie Anderson and Lucille Harris met in Sacramento and married around the turn of the 19th century. They had five children, Doris, Betty, Richard, Mary and Tom.


Alfred Kiene family

– My father, Fred Kiene, grew up in south Sacramento and met my mother, Betty Anderson, in the same neighborhood. They married before WWII and had five children, Kathleen, William, Richard, John and Elizabeth.

Harold Giesler family

– My first wife’s parents, Harold Giesler and Louise Cotta, met in Sacramento, married and had four children, Andrea, Carolyn, Bill and Barbra.

Lloyd Eernisse family

– My current wife’s parents, Lloyd Eernisse and Clara Brown, met in rural South Dakota and married there. They had three children, Robert, Marilyn and Don. The family moved to Davis, California in the early 1950s.


 

As of now, with our blended families, we have 7 very special grand children which are the main attractions in our lives.


 

                                                            “Best Friends For Life”

 

My parents, Fred Kiene and Betty Anderson grew up in south Sacramento between World War I and World War II. Their best friends in high school were Bill Sullivan and Carolyn McArthur.

Before the guys went off to World War II they all got married. My dad worked on aircraft for the US Navy in the Central Pacific on Palmyra Atoll. Bill, having lost an eye to a BB gun, drove an ambulance for the US Army. After the war they remained best friends doing lots of fun thing together in Sacramento.

Both couples soon started their families. My parents had 5 kids, Kathy, Bill (me), Dick, John and Elizabeth. Bill & Carol had 4 children, Chuck, Pat, Jean and Jan.

We all took vacations together, mostly in the summer, on the California coast. One of our favorite places was Sycamore Grove Camp Ground in the coast range just up from Santa Cruz. Every day we went down to the beach from about noon to 4pm. We would go back up to the camp ground and shower, eat dinner and then drive back down to Santa Cruz to spend the summer evenings on the board walk. The good old days.

For a while Bill, Carol and the kids move to Sunnyvale, California. They had a big old two story house on a big piece of land in the mountains near Sunnyvale Mountain Park. This was a name they made up to describe their property?

We had lots of fun visiting them there.

When I was a teenager Bill, Carol and the kids moved up to Wilsonville, Oregon just south of Portland. Bill was a very serious hunter and fisherman. They would send us letters with photos of Bill and some of the kids with salmon, pheasants, ducks and deer. I was mad at my parents for not moving up there with them.

Around the winter of 1964 my uncle Tom Anderson and I drove his new Pontiac GTO from Sacramento up to Wilsonville to see the Sullivans. It had snowed from Redding up to their place out in the country. We stopped at Tule Lake to do some duck and goose hunting. It was 18 degrees with snow. Up near there place we saw a flock of about a hundred pheasants standing in the snow out in a big field.

Over 20 years ago when my dad was dying of cancer, Bill and Carol came down from Oregon to be with my parents in Sacramento. Bill and my dad worked around the house doing all kinds of projects to get my parent’s house in perfect shape.

Some years later Bill passed away. My mom and Carol went together with a bunch of us on a cruise to the Panama Canal. My mom and Carol would visit some for the last 15 to 20 years. Recently Carol passed away at 92 up in Bend, Oregon where she was with her daughter Jean and family. My mom is still with us at 90 living in assisted living near her high school, C K McClatchy High School in South Sacramento.

We were all very lucky to have some really wonderful times together.

 


In Memoriam

 

We have lost some of my family that are missed but not forgotten.

 

First we lost our wonderful grandparents:

Lucille ‘Boo’ Waitie Harris  1891 – 1972

Joseph Andreas Kiene  1886 – 1973

Marie Franziska Stuby  1884 – 1974

Archie Leroy Anderson  1899 – 1983

 

Next was our dedicated father:

Alfred Joseph Kiene  1922 – 1991

 

We lost our youngest sister:

Elizabeth Ann Kiene  1961 – 2003

 

We lost our oldest daughter:

Koren ‘Kori’ Louise Kiene  1972 – 2006

 

We just lost our youngest brother:

John Francis Kiene  1949 – 2015

He was a world class guitar player.

 

*Soon I will write something about our loved ones that we have lost……..

 


 

We also lost some of my wife’s beloved family

 

We naturally lost her grandparents first:

 

Hardy V Brown

Laura Huges

 

John Eerinsse  1886 – 1941

Martha Edna Doty  1885 – 1979

 

Next we lost her parents:

 

Lloyd John Eernisse  1913  – 1982

Clara Marie Brown  1916  – 1990

 

We lost one of her brothers at a young age:

 

Jerry Lee Eernisse  1940 – 1942

 

*Soon we will write something about these family members…….