Kleeden, Mark & Genevieve (Cagle)

Daily Oklahoman
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
January 16, 1945, pg 1

Death Stikes Kleeden Home Twice in Day

Mark Kleeeden, a promoter who cared more than one fortune out of as tumultous a career as the oil world every saw, died here Monday night less than 24 hours after his wife's death.

Mrs. Kleeden, 35, died at 10.30 Sunday night in Oklahoma City General hospital after a tonsilectomy earlier in the day. Badly shaken and suffering from shock, Kleeden went to the home of W. C. Neil, a long-time friend and business associate at 843 NE 20. He spent most of the day in bed there under a physician's care.

Late Monday afternoon his condition became critical and he died at 7.30 pm. A coroner's verdict ascribed his death to a heart ailment superinduced by shock and aggravated by a diabetic condition from which Kleeden had long suffered. He was 53.

Joint services for the Kleedens will be held at 2 pm Wednesday in the Smith and Kernke funeral chapel. They will be buried togethe in Memorial Park Cemetery.

Kleeden's career was one of the story books. It involved numerous clashes with the law over alleged fradulent oil stock promotions, but from which he invariably came clear; it involved a violent clash with Governor William H. Murray who sought to have Kleeden deported in 1933 as an undesirable alien; he was a central figure in the famed "hot oil" investigations that rocked the legislature and the city feld in the early 1930s; and against all this he was known to his friends as a warm-hearted philanthropist who gave fabuluous Christmas parties for the city's underpriveleged children; who had one of the nations finest collections of ancient Bibles; and who delighted in pipe orgn concerts at the palatial home he formerly owned - he sold it just before Christmas - at 601 NE 63.

[article continues for several more paragraphs naming his business dealings and various companies he owned/was involved with]

Daily Oklahoman
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
January 17, 1945, pg 3

Joint Kleeden Funeral Today

Joint services for Mark and Genevieve Kleeden, Oklahoma City couple who died within 24 hours of each other, will be held at 2 pm Wednesday in the Smith and Kernke funeral home with burial in Memorial Park.

Daily Oklahoman
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
February 15, 1945, pg 10

Kinsman Puts in Claim For Kleeden Estate

W. C. Noll, 843 NE 20, and Paul Showalter, 4317 Butler place, Wednesday were appointed joint administrators of the estates of Mark Kleeden and his wife, Mrs. Genevieve M Kleeden, who died within 24 hours of each other on January 14 and 15. Noll was a business associate sand long-time friend of the colorful oil promoter. Showalter is an attorney.

The appointments were made by C. J. Blinn, county judge, following an all-day hearing on petitions for letters of administration and a petition for proate of a holographic will signed by Kleeden, which bequeated his entire estate to his wife.

Noll and Showalter were each required to post a $30,000 surety bond in the Kleeden estate administration with will annexed and were placed under $10,000 bonds in the Genevieve Kleeden estate administration.

Question of beneficiaties of the Kleeden esate, now valued at $25,000, is still speculative, but included in the petitions heard before Judge Blinn was one filed by attorneys for Ernest Weisse of Hamshire, Texas. who testifie Wednesday afternoon that he is a half-brother of Kleeden. Weisse's petition nominated Noll for administrator of the estate.

Although at the time of the deaths of Kleeden and his wife, Noll said he understood Kleeden's parents are living in Germany and that no living relatives were in the United States, Weisse testified on the witness staand that Kleeden's father died in Germany in 1903 an his mother's death occurred there four years later.

Weisse, 72, slightly deaf, said that he came to the United States from Germany when he was 16 years old, and became a naturalized citizen in 1899. Of six ful brothers and sisters, all of whom are dead, two came to the United States. Weisse testified that he and Kleeden had the same mother, but that following his father's death, his mother married Kleeden's father. A brother of Mark, he said was killed during the first World war overseas.

Kleeden, an alien resident of this country, left a will dated Nov. 12, 1942, which was discovered in a drawer of a sewing machine at his home several days after his death. The will was found by Harry G. Cagle, brother of Mrs. Kleeden, who filed the petition for probate and who also filed a petition for letters of administration.

Cagle was named temporary administrator of his sister's estate last month, at the same time Noll was named special administrator or Kleeden's estate.

Shortly after Cagle filed the petition, his father, Walter Luther Cagle, also filed a petition for letters of administration in the estates of both his daughted and son-in-law....ss

Source: The Oklahoman.

Contributed by Marti Graham, February 2007. Information posted as courtesy to researchers. The contributor is not related to nor researching any of the above.