Kenneth Klein Obituary

[historyman]

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[/si               1930 - 2023[/size/font]



BORN

1930



DIED

2023



ABOUT
Harvard University University of Chicago University of Wisconsin Valparaiso University Washington University

FUNERAL HOME
Moeller Funeral Home
104 Roosevelt Road
Valparaiso, IN


KENNETH KLEIN OBITUARY
Published by The Times on Mar. 22, 2023
Kenneth H. Klein, Ph.D.
Sept. 29, 1930 - Mar. 19, 2023


VALPARAISO - With heavy hearts we announce that Kenneth Henry Klein, passed away on March 19, 2023, at the age of 92, in Valparaiso, Indiana. As was his wish, he died peacefully in his home, with his loving family around him. A strong man, he put up one heck of a fight trying to recover from the massive stroke that he sustained on January 4, 2023.

Ken was born on September 29, 1930, in Springfield, Illinois, the second of two sons of Hans Otto Klein and Hilma Marie (Volle) Klein. Ken vividly remembered the hardships of the Depression and of WWII, as well as having been lovingly nourished in a deeply conservative (Missouri Synod) religious home and church-centered environment. He was named after his grandfather, Henry Adam Klein, an ordained Lutheran minister and President of Concordia Theological Seminary, Springfield, Illinois. Ken's education took him through Lutheran parochial elementary school, through Springfield High School, Washington University, the University of Chicago (Bachelor of Divinity), Chicago Lutheran Theological Seminary (Master of Theology), Mansfield College of Oxford University, Oxford England (thesis research) and Harvard University, where he earned a Ph.D. in "History and Philosophy of Religion" in 1965.

Ken is survived by his wife of 23 1/2 years, Lea Paulette Lorraine Shelemey, her two children, Denise Dalphond and Gregory Dalphond, and three step-grandchildren, Oliver Rotz, Peach Dalphond, and Earl Rotz. He is also survived by his first wife, Mary (Yuerhs) Klein, their two daughters, Jennifer Klein and Jessica Klein Freas (Rob Freas), and five grandchildren, Chayton Burkhart, Jimmy Burkhart, Christian Freas, Evelyn Freas, and Julian Freas. He was predeceased by his mother in 1944, by his father in 1977, and by his brother (Donald Edward Klein) in 2018.

In college, Ken double-majored in English and Psychology, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Beta Chapter, Missouri, 1952. He also dallied in athletics. He competed two years as a diver on the swimming team of Washington University and continued as a diver and gymnast at the University of Chicago. As a diver on the University of Chicago swimming team, he won the Chicago Intercollegiate Diving Championship in 1954. Far more important to him than athletics, Ken had the good fortune, in his sophomore year at Washington University, of taking an introductory course in philosophy under the not-yet world-famous Professor Huston Smith, who influenced his life in two ways; first, by personifying the discipline of philosophy, and second, by urging that he follow his undergraduate years with a more thorough study of theology at the University of Chicago. In addition to Huston Smith, Ken credits two philosophers at Harvard, Rogers Albriton and Paul Ziff, with turning his life around.

His graduate school years were both years of pleasure-his happiest times were the five summers he spent as a bellman on the S. S. North American, a cruise ship that plied the waters of the Great Lakes - and years of deep spiritual searching; his studies at the University of Chicago, Oxford University, and Harvard University brought profound challenges to the theological beliefs he had adopted as a youth. That searching, which he took seriously, lasted the rest of his life.

Ken came to Valparaiso University in response to a personal invitation of then-President O.P. Kretzmann, who was also a life-long friend of Ken's father. Ken spent his entire professional life teaching in the Philosophy Department of Valparaiso University. He came to V.U. in the spring of 1965 and retired, with the status of Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, in the spring of 1995. He cherishes his 30 years teaching in the philosophy department, where his main focus was logic, epistemology, metaphysics, Early Modern Philosophy (Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant) and the philosophy of religion. He regarded his teaching years as the best years of his life...the most challenging, the most productive, the most deeply satisfying.


In addition to his regular duties as faculty member, he did other things along the way: In 1967, he was chosen to select and train Valparaiso University's "College Bowl" team, an inter-university academic competition, broadcast each week on national TV, where Valpo's team won twice (and lost once). For two years, 1969-71, he was the first two-year Director of VU's Overseas Study Program in Cambridge, England. In 1995 he received the first Caterpillar award for "Excellence in Teaching." In that connection, and for three academic years funded by the Lilly Corporation, he founded and initiated the Teaching Resource Center at Valparaiso University, a program which strove to provide resources for the improvement of teaching. In 1968 he took a Sabbatical at the University of Wisconsin, where he revised and expanded his doctoral dissertation into a book - Positivism and Christianity: A Study of Theism and Verifiability - which was published by Martinus Nijhoff in 1977. For several years in the mid 1980's he was actively involved in "Philosophers Concerned for Peace," a sub-group of the American Philosophical Association, during those worrisome years when the USA and the Soviet Union were stockpiling nuclear weapons and the world was consumed with worry about the prospect of nuclear war. His involvement in that group resulted in his co-editing two more books, Issues in War and Peace and In the Interest of Peace, which were published by Longwood Academic in 1989 and 1990. He regrets his never having finished his still-unpublished manuscript on "free will." He took a four-year leave of absence (1975-'79) from V.U. to support his then wife and two small children (aged two and four) in Philadelphia, a period in which she earned an M.D. from the Medical College of Pennsylvania.

Since his retirement, Ken has enjoyed golf, gardening, and more than a hundred thousand miles of motorcycling all over the USA - "every state except Rhode Island," as well as deep into Canada. His post-retirement years have seen continued involvement in The Emeriti Book Club at V.U. and ReVU (Retirees of Valparaiso University) an organization which he helped organize at V.U. and has encouraged and nourished by his involvement in AROHE (Association of Retirement Organizations in Higher Education) a national organization devoted to the enrichment of the post-retirement years of faculty, administration and staff of colleges and universities across the country.

There will be a Visitation, conceived as a celebration of his life, at MOELLER FUNERAL HOME & CREMATORY, in Valparaiso on Friday March 24, 2023, from 3:00 to 7:00 PM, and a Funeral Service at Immanuel Lutheran Church on Saturday, March 25, 2023, at 10:00 AM. Ken will be buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery in the Klein family plot in Springfield, Illinois in the Spring.

Memorial donations may be made to the Hilltop House, Valparaiso University Psychology Department or Compassion & Choices.

[vu84v2]

Dr. Klein was a great man. Had him for two philosophy classes (I minored in philosophy) that provided great personal value for many years.

[valpopal]

Ken was a good friend for decades. Years ago, we even paired often on the faculty golf team in the Forest Park city league, and it was great to carry on a conversation with him as we casually walked the course.

[vu72]

I was on campus during the College Bowl competition.  Remember watching the match against Yale where, as I remember, we lost on a last second buzzer. Mark Schwehn and Mel Piehl, both former Deans of Christ College, were on that team.

[historyman]

Ken and Abe Lincoln in the same cemetery seems appropriate.