Joseph Klein's Obituary
Joseph Klein was born on May 10, 1948, in Rainbach, Austria. In 1952, John and Maria Klein arrived in the United States with, as Maria used to say, “two kids (John and Joe) and two suitcases.” Joseph and his brother John were raised in Chicago, Illinois, with many, many cousins, aunts, uncles, and family members, and proudly graduated from Lane Tech High School. In 1967, Joseph joined the Air Force, which led him to Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. Joseph was a proud veteran who settled in Miami (even though he never did learn to speak Spanish- he just let his bilingual daughters translate for him) and eventually retired from a long career programming very large computers for IBM and a short retirement stint as a page for the Miami-Dade Public Library system.
Above all, Joe loved to eat, drink, and be merry! He also loved watching the Hurricanes and the Dolphins play football with his friends or on the phone with his son Karl. Joe also enjoyed telling or being the star of a great story! For example, his grandsons, Troy and Grant, will always remember when he babysat for them, while Faith was being born, and their Ota let them watch Jaws and eat as many fruit roll-ups as they desired when they were only 3 and 6 years old! His daughter Nicole will always remember how, when she was 7 years old, they went white water rafting in the Smoky Mountains. The water was freezing, but after seeing a few people jump in, she wanted to jump in too! Joe gave her a look and asked if she was sure. She said yes, so he jumped in, gasped at the cold water, and yelled, “Okay, Nico, it's your turn!” However, she shook her head and said, “No, never mind, I don’t want to” and the entire raft burst out laughing. Karl, his son, recalls that his Pops took him to all of his first sports games: football, basketball, baseball, and most importantly, pro-wrestling! He also ingrained in his son a LOVE of sports that included loud and passionate cheering or coaching from the living room! Joe was a self-proclaimed “Daniel F. Boone” with an alleged internal compass to, eventually, get us wherever we needed to go. However, if you did travel in the car with him, you would hear VERY COLORFUL LANGUAGE and probably learn some new vocabulary words. His daughter Valentina will always remember when she had an ear infection in the middle of the night, while visiting her grandparents in Chicago, and he famously told her he would “give her medicine to knock her out” only to have the adverse reaction and need to have her Aunt Paula rescue her and take her to an actual pediatrician! Finally, there is an entire genre of “Chicago Basement Stories” from the 1960s that his brother, cousins, and friends can attest to, but as his children are writing and reading this, we collectively do not want to hear them.
Joe’s most important accomplishments, if we do say so ourselves, are his three fabulous, now grown, children (in age order): Valentina Klein Adams (David), Karl Joseph Klein, and Nicole Klein! He was also the very proud Ota of 5 grandchildren (also in age order): Troy (Caroline), Grant (Katelyn) and Faith Adams, and Maryalice and Jack Klein. He was also delighted by his perfect, beautiful great-granddaughter, Evolet Wren Adams. Ultimately, it is difficult to capture an entire life in just a few paragraphs. Suffice it to say that there are many, many family and friends who will miss Joseph Klein tremendously! “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.” Psalm 34:1
There will be a graveside service at South Florida National Cemetery on Friday, June 6th, 2025, at 12:30 PM.
In Lieu of Flowers, the family kindly requests donations be made to the following organizations in Joseph's honor:
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