You can get a copy of Erich Klebe’s naturalization file from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Given that he immigrated to the U.S. in 1923 and was already listed as naturalized in the 1930 census, his U.S. citizenship must have been obtained not long before that census.
The Social Security Death Index spells his name as “Erick” Klebe. You can get a copy of his 1951 application for a Social Security number (#477-34-4311) from the Social Security Administration in Baltimore. The application contains this information. That he did not apply for a Social Security number until 1951 suggests that he was self-employed 1937-1951. (Changes in the Social Security law in 1951 required the self-employed to pay Social Security taxes.)
You can contact the Clerk of Circuit Court in Lee County, Florida for a copy of Klebe’s probate record.
According to the online records at the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Erich Klebe and his wife and children departed from Hamburg, Germany on 25 July 1923, aboard the Ohio, arriving at New York on 5 August 1923.
Occupation: Mechanician.
Height: 5 feet, 5 inches.
Hair color: Dark blond.
Eye color: Blue.
Place of birth: Berlin, Germany.
Next of kin: Bruno Klebe, brother, Berlin, Germany.
Destination: Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Whether going to join a relative or friend: Willi Ramin, uncle, 1909 5th Avenue N., Minneapolis, Minnesota.
As for records of the patent law suit, those would now be held at the National Archives Great Lakes Region facility in Chicago, Illinois, which has old federal records from the states of Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Indiana. You specifically want Record Group 21 (RG 21), records of the U.S. District Courts. I am guessing the patent case was heard in the U.S. District Court in Minnesota’s Third Division, in St. Paul, Minnesota (St. Paul is just across the river from Minneapolis). But the helpful archivisits at the Great Lakes Region facility should be able to look through court indexes for you to determine where the case was heard.
How did they come up with such an arbitrary number of 72 years? In the U.K. census information isn’t made public for 100 years, the reasoning being that by the time the census is released everybody in it will be dead, not strictly true of course but I think people over 100 years old are beyond caring about private information being released about their formative years.
I don’t know why 72 years was chosen, but just on the face of it, it seems it had something to due with life span. The 100 year span appears to be more arbitrary , unless one is addicted to powers of 10.
The 72 year privacy period was established in an exchange of letters between the Director of the Census and the Archivist of the United States in 1952, and later codified in 44 U.S. Code 2108(b).
If you think about it, 100 years is actually the more arbitrary number — it does not tie into any real world event. In 1952, the average life expectancy of Americans was 65.8 years for men and 71.6 years for women. Round the latter number to the nearest year.