This is all based on my memory of stories I have been told, please send me corrections and additions!  I know I have lots of other notes somewhere else, and I will add to it as I find them.  

Ted was born to Joseph Brenner and Anna Meunsch (sp?) on Oct 27, 1923 in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.  His Dad was a tinner/roofer, his Mom was a homemaker.  His Mom came to the United States from what was then called Transylvania when she was 19, to visit her Uncle.   World War I broke out and she never returned home and I don't think she ever saw her German family again.  When in Cleveland she met Joseph Brenner and they settled into life together.  According to Ted's older sister Emma, Joseph was born in Transylvania also, but I do not think they met until they were in the United States. They were married in Canton, Ohio in 1916.  Joseph died in 1953 at age 63.  Anna died around 1969.  
Ted had a normal kid's life, graduated from Shaw High School.   During the depression (around 1930-31 ) they moved out of their house (3383 Lownesdale Road in Cleveland Heights) and rented a house on Lonsdale (14601 Strathmore in East Cleveland), and rented their own house out.  His mother opened a restaurant, cooking many foods, including German dishes, during this time to keep the family afloat.  It was during this time when they lived in the rented house that he lived next door to Rita Eileen Mcshane (14605 Strathmore).  Rita was 4 years younger, but Ted was good friends with her older brother Mac. After the depression, they moved back to their house on Strathmore, but he never forgot Rita or her brothers!

Upon graduating from high school in June 1941, he went to work for Cleveland Trencher running one of the machines.  With the beginning of WWII, he elected to enlist in the Navy for 4 years to avoid being drafted.  They sent him around the country for training on repairing the 'computers' that ran the gunfire controls--it was very complicated machinery.  At first, he was stationed at the Great Lakes training basin for about 4 months.  Then he was moved to Long Island for 3 months to work with Ford instrument, one of the companies that made the equipment for the Navy.  At one point he was also stationed in Norfolk, Va for a couple of months, and then in the Aleutian Islands off the northern point of Alaska.  He remembers that there was lots of flu when they were there and they had to stay far away from each other--similar to the corvid-19 issues we are dealing with today.  The destroyer tender he was stationed on was an old WWI cargo ship reconditioned as a tender, with one big gun just to be impressive.  Their sleeping bunks were 4-5 bunks high.  He never saw gunfire the whole time he was in the Navy.  After being discharged, he came back to Cleveland and resumed work life.  

Aug 27, 1949 he married Rita McShane.  Rita's mother was very ill with lupus at the time of the wedding, and came to the wedding on a stretcher.  She died shortly after, on October 23, 1949.  They went to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon.  Ted remembers getting a bad cold while he was on the honeymoon.

In August 1950 Grandpa Brenner died, so they moved in with Grandma Brenner.  Rita's Dad, Grandpa McShane, also moved with them.  In August 1952 Grandma Brenner sold her house and moved in with her daughter, Emma.  Ted and Rita then purchased their first house at 14401 Broxton Road in West Park.
In January 1953 they took the first of many foster kids.    First they had 4 girls, all children of Goldie Dietz.  They were JoAnn, Judy, Linda and Donna.  At one point, Rita and Ted wanted to adopt two of the girls, but Goldie would not allow them to be adopted.  They returned to their mother in January 1954 and lived in the projects in Cleveland near the airport.  Luann remembers going over there to visit. Then they had Billy in January 1954 while Rita was pregnant.    Luann was born October 10,1954, and Billy was adopted by another couple in December 1954. They also took in two more foster children, Mable and Chuck (emotionally disturbed) during 1955-1956.  

They moved to 1558 Prospect Ave. in Rocky River in April 1956 and lived there until 1968.    They subsequently had 2 more children, Lynne Renee born May 14, 1957 and Stephen Karl born June 20, 1958.    

In February, 1968 they moved to 2775 West Asplin Drive in Rocky River, where Ted lived for almost 50 years (short just a few days).  

In 1950 Ted was working for the General Electric Company in the wire and cable division doing inside sales.  The district specialist was Frances Calvert.  Calvert was an inventor of sorts and was always developing side businesses.  At this time he had a small business making aluminum fittings to fit with the GE cable.  Although GE was making a percentage of his sales, they finally said that he had to decide which business he was going to pursue.  Ted admired Mr. Calvert very very much and always spoke very highly of him.  

Calvert had an acquaintance, Mr. Miller, who was president of American Monorail.  He formed a group of investors to purchase the company from Mr. Calvert--the investors were Pische, Lore, and Miller (PLM).  Mr. Miller became president, the other two were not very involved in the business.  Understood in the deal was that Ted would go along to work in the new company.  The new company began in a garage off of W. 25th street.  Ray Horrocks, a pattern maker, was a fishing friend of Lore's and he became general manager.  He was older than Ted, but I remember having them over to our house at times.  Ray and Ted were the two main guys, working nights and Saturdays because Ted was still working for GE at this time.  While he was working for GE Ted was going to night school for electrical engineering, but he had to stop once he started working for PLM also.  I remember Mom saying that Dad always felt a bit inadequate compared to some of his customers because he never finished college.  

After about a year PLM built a building on W. 150th street.  By this time Ted had left GE and was working for PLM full time.  The two of them had pretty much full rein of the company to do what they felt necessary, and under them, the company's splicing kit business grew and grew.  GE came to them in 1957 and asked them to develop a coupler.  They had their own 5000V metal-enclosed coupler, but it was too large and unwieldy.  Ted did the original design and developed the coupler as we know it today. 

In 1967, the owners of PLM gratefully sold Ray and Ted a small portion of the PLM stock.  When the company was sold to Scott and Fetzer in 1968, this gave Ted a little nest egg to begin TJB>  The new S&F management was typically interfering, and unwilling to put more money into new designs.  They required budgets and other short term planning tools that were unfamiliar to Ray and Ted.  Ray had been made president of PLM, but Ted felt that he should have been.  All things put together, Ted felt the time was right to go off on his own.  

So in 1970 Ted quit and began TJB.
It started in the basement of their home at 2775 West Asplin Drive.  He worked there for about a year, then located a Quonset hut on Ingersoll Drive in Rocky River to begin the operations.  At first, it was just an assembly operation, but eventually, they started to produce some of their own parts.  
They subsequently moved to a building next door, where there was coincidentally another Mr. Miller--an old businessman that had an office on the same floor with a beautiful rolltop desk.  The same Mr. Calvert who had given the PLM its start owned a business across the street on Ingersoll Drive and Ted would see him occasionally.  Rita played an important role, and began working full time with TJB once all the kids were out of school.

In 1975 they purchased the LeBlond lathe and were on their way.  Steve and Jeff Tabor were already working for them, and still work there today.

In 1980 Ted purchased the building on Liberty Parkway in North Ridgeville where they are located today. It has always been profitable, although Luann remembers Mom scrimping during the initial years when TJB was just getting started.   Ted retired from active management of TJB around 1990, and turned the business over to his son Steve.  Steve ran the company until 2018 when he turned active management over to DJ Fiske, Ted's grandson.

Ted retired from TJB around 1990, I remember him telling me it just wasn't fun anymore.  He did not like the travel and felt it was time to retire.  
Ted had always been very healthy, never been in the hospital or had any other issues.  He did get shingles on his face sometime between 1990 and 1995--I remember it was very painful.  They had a pool at their house for many years, Ted would always go out and clean it, but we don't remember him ever getting in the pool.  In fact, I don't remember EVERY seeing my Dad in a pair of shorts.  
He also got Paget's disease during this time, which affected his leg and bowed it and it was painful ever after.  
Rita passed away suddenly on July 3, 1995, when Ted was still on crutches.  Luann and Lynne remember getting meals on wheels for him since we had little kids and did not cook any of the foods that Dad liked.  He didn't think the meals were too good!  He eventually got off his crutches and developed a routine of going out to eat every day for lunch and sometimes dinners. 
He would take the family out once a week for family dinner.  Often times it was Michael's restaurant in Rocky River.  Anyone that was in town would attend.  Eventually, it switched to a weekly family lunch, but he still went out to lunch and often dinner almost every day, he just didn't think it was worth cooking for himself. . He certainly could have learned--he learned to do his wash, be proficient at the computer, he just didn't want to.   

Christmas, 2017 Dad called and said he had extreme pain in his leg and couldn't manage to get up his stairs.  We took him to the emergency We moved a bed downstairs for him, but after a month of sponge baths, he understood that he couldn't stay in his current home.  The end of January, he moved to his new home at the Gardens at Westlake.  He had an apartment with a patio where he fed peanuts to the birds every day, 3 meals a day, (although we took him out for lunch almost every day), and a private dining room where we had occasional family dinners when we didn't go out.  He didn't require any services other than putting on those annoying TED socks, and he had a wonderful reclining chair that he sat in 16 hours a day...

2020--Covid struck, and we were all quarantined.  Like everyone else, his visits outside were extremely curtailed after March 31, 2020, except for occasional visits to the doctor and sometimes to sit outside with us on nice days.  His last excursion was to Luann's house in October to celebrate her birthday (and his) on a beautiful day, when we sat outside.  Thank you Lynne for the wonderful suggestion to get him out that day!  
He was content to stay in the gardens, didn't want to violate their rules, and one of the good benefits of Covid was that he was able to eat his meals in his room.  Because he was so hard of hearing, he didn't enjoy eating in the main dining room because he couldn't hear the conversation, and he didn't want people to think he was rude.  He had hearing aids, but he often still had trouble picking up many sounds.  Up until the end, he was able to log into his computer and manage a video call with Luann and Lynne.  

On Dec 17, 2020, he tested positive for Covid 19, but appeared asymtomatic.  On Dec 23 he fell and was quite confused.  He was taken to the hospital but returned home because they found nothing wrong.  On Dec 25, he again fell, and was very confused.  He again went to St. John's hospital, where they kept him for serveral days because of a case of pneumonia, upon which he was transferred to Westlake Village for skilled nursing for Physical Therapy. While he seemed to recover from the Covid 19 virus, at some point he contracted C-diff, a severe infection that made him miserable and was hard on his body, as was the antibiotic.  

Luann and Lynne were given compassionate care visits, and we were allowed to go in and visit him every day, which was wonderful--more than we have seen him in the prior 8 months. Although very sleepy, when awake he was still of very sound mind and still making jokes until the end.  He called us both the evening of Jan 17 and talked, then also called Luann the morning of Jan 18.  We discussed that he would go back to the Gardens the next day.  They got him up for Physical therapy that morning, and his heart gave out.  Fast and hopefully painless, just the way he wanted.