Maurice Kleve

Maurice Gerard Kleve, Jr. was born July 20, 1945, as the eldest of five children eventually raised in a big farm house in Dundas, Minnesota. Maury attended Northfield High School before graduating in 1969 from Mankato State College, MN, with degree in cell biology. While getting his PhD. from the University of Houston, he worked alongside researchers in Galveston, Texas, exploring the creation of movement on a cellular level using shrimp tails. Here he met Loretta Annette Ross (née Griffin), who was responsible for culturing shrimp for experiments. He won her over with his intelligence and gentle nature, thick jet-black hair, and crystal blue eyes.

Loretta and Maury married at the Galveston, Texas, county courthouse on April Fool's Day, 1977, and Maury began a teaching professorship in Loretta's home state at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) in the fall of 1980. After a miscarriage in 1978, Loretta gave birth to their daughter Ann in 1981. They eventually settled in west Little Rock for the duration of their 37 year marriage.

Maury ran a laboratory at UALR for nearly 35 years, formally retiring as professor emeritus in 2015. There he taught cell and developmental biology, microscopy, biotechnology, and molecular biology. He embraced teaching the large lecture hall Intro to Biology classes because he wanted get students' minds "while they're still fresh." A constant tinkerer, he manufactured a "gene gun" to explosively transfer DNA into cells. His untapped artistic talent as an illustrator found a home in his precise images of microscopic life. As a naturalist, he attempted to catalog all parasitic nematodes in Lake Itasca in Minnesota while still doing a little fishing.

In his long career as an educator in science he taught thousands of young minds to examine their beliefs rationally, to understand the scientific method and processes of evolution, and to love the complexity and interconnectedness of all life on our planet. He was able to gift his daughter Ann with his curiosity and intense love of learning. For Dr. Kleve science was a candle against the darkness of ignorance.

Preceeded in death by his parents and wife, he is survived by his daughter and long-term caregiver Annette Raschel Kleve of Little Rock; his two brothers, John Vernon (Barb) and Thomas Kleve; his sisters Maureen Vosejpka (Gary) and Marlene Ellingson (Stephen Krech), all of Minnesota, and their families. He will be missed by lifelong friend Steve Schiller and his loyal first graduate student Martha Hubbard. Maury was very fond of his bonus grandchildren from his marriage to Loretta, William and Rose Mae Meyer. In the final years of his life he was also cared for by his former student, Whitney M. Tevebaugh.

Visitation will be Thursday, March 9 beginning at 6:00 p.m., followed by a Vigil and Rosary Service at 7:00 p.m. at Christ the King. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated by Msgr. Francis I. Malone on Friday, March 10 at 11:30 a.m. at the church, followed by interment at 3:00 p.m. at East Lawn Cemetery in Marshall, Arkansas, alongside his wife Loretta.

Arrangements by Little Rock Funeral Home, 8801 Knoedl Ct., (501)224-2200. Dr. Kleve's online guestbook may be signed at www.littlerockfuneralhome.com.

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Visitation

MAR 9. 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM (CST)

Christ the King Catholic Church
4000 N. Rodney Parham
Little Rock, AR, 72212

Rosary Service

MAR 9. 7:00 PM (CST)

Christ the King Catholic Church
4000 N. Rodney Parham
Little Rock, AR, 72212

Funeral Mass

MAR 10. 11:30 AM (CST)

Christ the King Catholic Church
4000 N. Rodney Parham
Little Rock, AR, 72212