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Kriebel was secretary of the Lansdale Borough, secretary of the Lansdale Water Authority and Office Manager of the Lansdale Borough electric plant. He was required also to attend, record and report the proceedings of numerous committee meetings in connection with these offices and prepare an agendum for each. The committee meetings were held after hours so that in addition to being at the office five and a half days of each week he spent many evenings of each month away from his home.

Since he hoped to be able to live a while longer, he gave up all his offices but after so strenuous a schedule, which had been carried on for many years, he found that suddenly to have nothing to do was even worse. At first he was confined to his home but as rest improved his condition, Kriebel took daily walks. On the street he would meet friends and acquaintances, for Lansdale is not a large city, and they would ask about his health, his future plans and other embarrassing questions. His friends advised him to take up a hobby now that he had time for one. But what should be his hobby? Hobbies could be expensive and he had no money to throw away.

As a boy he had been interested in mechanics and a gift of a book about electricity and motors given him when he was in grade school had thrilled him so much that early he decided to become an electrical engineer. But lack of funds changed his plans. A four-year college course was out of the question.

He took a short course at a business school instead and after holding a series of positions, in a circuitous way, he arrived in Lansdale and in the offices from which he had just resigned.

KRIEBEL WAS fascinated with mechanical implements. He liked to repair appliances when they became out of order. Why not open a small repair shop for electrical household appliances? He could work at leisure as he felt like it. He would not promise work to be done at a given time and thus could work at his own speed.

So on his sixtieth birthday, Kriebel timidly nailed a wooden sign four by five inches in size to the garage which faced on a side street. The sign read, "Electrical Appliances Repaired." An arrow pointed to the entrance of the garage and there on the work bench he opened his shop.

Friends and acquaintances brought vacuum cleaners, toasters, irons and other electrical equipment. The shop was never without work but in a few months Kriebel was crowded, so he rented a basement room under a Lansdale jewelry store.

Here he was given electric clocks to repair from the jewelry store repair department. He began reading about the mechanics of clocks, learning what makes them tick. He read books about clock makers and the history of the keeping of time through the ages. Now at sixty years of age in the year 1946, Kriebel had found an absorbing and, what proved later, a profitable hobby.

In 1948, two years later, the Kriebels bought a country home at Worcester, Pennsylvania, not far from Lansdale. Here on the ground floor of the house, which has an outside entrance, Kriebel opened his present shop. The sign by the road reads, "Clocks of all Kinds, and Small Electrical Appliances Restored."

Not only is Kriebel an electrician, he is a carpenter also. He lined the walls with shelves which are filled today with clocks in various stages of repair. There are modern, novelty and antique time pieces here but ninety per cent of them are treasured antiques. The little sign by the road and satisfied customers are his only means of advertising. There are six clocks being repaired today as the result of one pleased customer telling her friends. Few appliances are brought for repairs today, which pleases him, for clocks have become his specialty.

A long dining room buffet with side drawers provides the working surface on which he spreads out his tools and parts of the clock being repaired. This buffet makes a fine knee-hole desk and in a semicircle behind his revolving chair are three floor model radio cabinets with the works removed and shelves installed. Here, within easy reach, are instruments, tools, parts and trays of disassembled clocks, each tray carefully labelled.

At auctions in the community Kriebel bought for a song the buffet, radio cabinets and other materials used in completing his shop. He buys clocks, too. He repairs them and sells them at a profit or uses the parts for repairing other clocks.

To his stock of repairing tools and extra parts, Kriebel is constantly making additions. The entire stock of an aged clock maker who recently died, he bought from the widow. Cuckoo clocks were his specialty. A local wood carver bought a cuckoo clock case which he had carved asking if Kriebel could put in the works. He could and did, complete with bellows, chains, pine cone weights, and, of course, the cuckoo.

From the estate of a Pittsburgh jeweler, whose daughter lives in the community, Kriebel bought an expensive electric lathe and other valuable instruments for much less than their original cost.

His shop has a business-like appearance, since he mounted brass grill work, from a dismantled bank building, on the railing which separates his working area from the customers. This gives him greater privacy and protects the valuable clocks left for repairs.

Here at the end of the day when there is little likelihood of interruption by visitors or customers, Kriebel assembles or takes apart his clock patients.

NOT ONLY is the Worcester clock man interested in acquiring equipment but when an old clock is brought to him he tries to learn something about the clock maker. This information he finds in clock books for which he keeps a standing order at Philadelphia's famous secondhand book store, Leary's. Back number antiques magazines also furnish him with much information. From his fund of knowledge he shares what he knows with the owners of the clocks when repairs have been made.

Today he has two Chauncey Jerome (1793-1868) shelf clocks awaiting repairs. The papers inside the shelf clocks tell the name of the maker and place made. These clocks were made at "New Haven, Ct., U.S.A." The works of the Chauncey Jerome clocks are made of rolled brass strips and were the first mass produced clocks in America. They were sent by the ship loads to England more than 100 years ago. According to Kriebel's information the agent who sold these Chauncey Jerome clocks abroad was Epaphroditus Peck.

Chauncey Jerome was the son of a blacksmith and until his father's death, which occurred when Chauncey was eleven, the boy had helped his father in the smithy. He had almost no schooling. Then he became apprenticed to a carpenter. On the completion of his apprenticeship he made clock cases for Eli Terry's (1772-1852) wooden clock works.

Kriebel will tell you that at one time Eli Terry paid Chauncey Jerome 100 wooden clock works for a house which Chauncey Jerome owned and valued at $600.

Clocks were sold by peddlers going from house to house in New England, New York and Pennsylvania. They were sold for $15. They were the same clocks which today are valued at much more than their original cost.

Also in the repair shop there are several Eli Terry clocks. Kriebel gives them "dental" care. The wooden cogs break when the clock is not carefully wound so Kriebel must make new cogs or teeth.

A metal "marine" clock which strikes the bells; a musical alarm clock made in France; a beautiful, ornate, French gilt clock with light blue porcelain face and trimmings; a clock with a mercury filled pendulum to equalize its expansion and contraction are among the clocks in various stages of repair in his shop today. There is also a mahogany presentation mantel clock which has fusee works. The fusee is a cone shaped barrel over which a chain, instead of gut or a cable is used. The clock has both the Trinity and Westminster chimes. For these chimes, six hammers must be kept in tune.

KRIEBEL IS especially interested in grandfather clocks. The works are removed from their tall cases before they are brought to his shop. Here he clamps the works to small shelves near the ceiling of his shop so that the pendulum and weights can function properly as they are being repaired. The weights usually weigh eighteen pounds apiece so they are not brought with the works but Kriebel uses home made ones of concrete.

A clock of the grandfather type now being repaired, made by Jacob Hagey of Hilltown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, has second, minute and hour hands. It tells the time of day, the day of the week, date and the phases of the moon. In addition it has an alarm which should waken the soundest sleeper. Hagey lived 125 years ago. He made many tall clocks and was a second generation clock maker.

Also awaiting Kriebel's special attention is a David Rittenhouse (1732-1796) clock. On a round brass plate nearly three inches in diameter above the face of the clock is the name "David Rittenhouse, Norriton." David Rittenhouse was a genius in whatever mechanical construction he attempted. He was a farmer's son who worked on his father's farm not five miles from Worcester, until he was nineteen years old when he began making clocks and other mathematical instruments. Most of the David Rittenhouse clocks are in museums today.

From a mansion near Princeton, New Jersey, Kriebel has two English grandfather clocks with bronze filigree on the brass faces. These clocks are much more elaborate and expensively made than those made in the colonies, but English clock makers were craftsmen who learned the trade and made clocks all their lives, belonging to the Clock Maker's Company, while in colonial times many of the clocks here were made in the winter time by farmers when farm work was slack or by blacksmiths who improved their time by making the clock works which self-taught carpenters encased. The name Henton Brown, London, is abbreviated thus on the beautiful brass clock face of one of these English clocks: Hen N. Brown—while Devereaux Bowly's name appears on a similar clock face as Deverx Bowly, London. Bowly was a master clock maker who died in 1773 (180 years ago) leaving 500 pounds to the poor of the Clock Maker's Company. Thirty-nine of these tall-cased or "grandfather clocks" have been "restored to service" by Kriebel since he came to his country home five years ago.

Kriebel is a careful, thorough, patient, painstaking workman and before a time keeper leaves his shop it must pass the test of three windings with no loss of time. Thus an eight-day clock remains twenty-four days after the repairs are made. Then somewhere Kriebel etches his trade-mark on the brass work. It includes the letters Krie and a bell symbol. He also numbers each repair job.

KRIEBEL'S ADVICE to all his callers is to develop a hobby. Learn something new every day and share your knowledge with others. He adds:

"A person of sixty has reached the time in life, when he does not feel like doing much work in a hurry. The clock repair hobby requires that you do not hurry.

"Be patient. If a screw or nut drops, or you put a wheel in the wrong place, try again, perhaps several times. If your patience seems just about gone, do some other job and come back to it later. You will find it much easier. You can now think what caused the error and avoid the cause.

"Be pleasant and agreeable to your customers, but tell them nicely that you cannot work and talk, when you repair clocks.

"If you despise mechanical work, then do not try clock repairing, but if you have some ability to analyze or construct mechanical actions, clock work is a good way to develop the craft.

"Try to dismantle an old shelf clock, one that strikes the hour only. Wind up the strike side, also the time side. Then take a tin pan about nine inches square and two inches high to put the parts in as you take the clock apart." Kriebel outlines subsequent procedures as follows:

1. With a small pliers remove the pin and washer that holds the minute hand. Take off the minute hand and also pull the hour hand off—it is only friction tight. Place these in the pan.

2. Take small screws out that hold the dial. Remove the dial.

3. Now you can see the works. Before you take off the pendulum, tie, but do not damage the escapement wheel. That is the saw tooth looking wheel. To tie the escapement wheel so it will not run, take soft thin wire, or a wire pipe cleaner, place it around the brass frame and through the escapement wheel, around the rim and twist ends of wire or pipe cleaner together. Remember, the clock springs are wound up nearly tight. Now remove the pendulum rod from its slot support at the top end. Do not damage the very thin top end of the pendulum rod.

4. You will see the heads of four wood screws that hold the works to the back board of the clock. Remove the four wood screws and you can lift the works right out of the clock case.

5. The next step is a very important one. The springs are wound up, not quite tight, so do not attempt to take the front and back bearing plates apart, or you will damage many of the wheels and the spring might fly out and damage you. First, make two spring holders out of iron rod about half as thick as a lead pencil. They should be shaped like a very large letter C, and large enough to fit over each wound up spring loosely. These will prevent the springs from expanding too much when you take the next step.

6. Take a piece of an old broom handle, about five inches long. Drill ¹/8-inch hole through it about one inch from the end. Then saw down to the hole, so you will have an ¹/8-inch slot in the piece one inch deep. Take the key you wound the springs with and fit the rear of the key into this slot. Fasten the key firmly into the slot with friction tape, so that it cannot pull out.

7. You should have a vise on your bench so you can clamp a portion of the rear frame bearing plate very firmly, so that it will not pull out of the vise when you try to let the springs down. If it is not firmly gripped in the vise, the works will come loose and cause a lot of damage. Also, be very careful of the wheels, especially the escapement wheel.

8. With the works firmly held by the vise, and with both the C spring holders placed over and about the center of the spring, take your broomstick unwinding key and grip it firmly with your right hand and wind up enough, just a little, so you can lift the latch on the spring wheel, then let the broomstick handle part slip around slowly in your hand. When the spring has expanded to the inside diameter of the C holders and you feel no pressure on the handle in your hand, you can take the unwinder from that position and do the same with the other spring. Examine the C spring holders as they are holding the springs firmly, because you will want to take the wheel with spring and spring holder on it out of the frames in the next act.

9. Take half an hour or more and examine the wheels and springs and their position in the bearing frame plates. Also position of the levers on the strike side more especially, so the clock strikes right, when reassembled.

10. A beginner should take a sharp pointed file, or a scriber, and mark the wheels. Start with the time side, that is the spring that drives the escapement wheel. Mark the spring wheel 1-T, the next wheel to the spring wheel 2-T, and on until you get to and mark the escapement wheel. Use the same method of marking the wheels from the strike spring also, but mark them S-1, S-2, etc.

11. Now you are ready to loosen the nuts or pins that hold the works frame together. Go slow. Take all the wheels out.

12. In assembling, start from the bottom to replace the wheels. The two spring wheels and the long axle wheel that operates the hands should be replaced first.

For further instruction, Kriebel suggests that you obtain all the clock repair books you can. He has found these particularly useful:

"Practical Clock Repairing," by Donald DeCarle; "Clock Repairing," by F.J. Garrard; "Modern Clocks, their Design and Maintenance," by T.R. Robinson; and "The Watch and Clock Makers' Handbook," by F.J. Britten.

Interesting and valuable reference books on the history of clocks and clock makers, which Kriebel recommends include:

"Time and Timekeepers," by Willis I. Milham; "American clocks & Clockmakers," by Carl W. Drepperd, and "The Book of American Clocks," by Brooks Palmer.

"AS TO repair charges on clocks," says Kriebel, "it is hard to give an estimate. The location (metropolitan or suburban), time spent and cost of supplies needed must be considered. My prices range from 75 cents for repairing a hand on an alarm clock to $25 for completely reconditioning grandfather clocks and multi-tune musical mantel, clocks.

"I would advise a clock hobbyist to keep to the hour strike clocks and alarm clocks until he has gained experience."

Kriebel says that it is advantageous to keep a record card of what you do in repairing a clock. Number the card and scribe the number on the clock repaired, so that you can refer to it should the clock come in again for repairs.

"My description of how to start clock repairing may sound complicated," says Kriebel, "but, if you follow it step by step and become familiar with the principles of what make a clock tick, you soon find it fascinating. Anyone with some mechanical bent and an aroused interest in the romance of timekeepers of the last 300 years can be a successful clock repair hobbyist."