Obituary of Helen R. Kruse

Helen Ruth Kruse was born April 20, 1903 on a farm a few miles west of Ft. Calhoun, the daughter of Jacob and Clara Sierk. She attended Long Creek Grade School, Blair High School and Wayne State Normal School. She then taught country schools in Washington County for several years at Long Creek, DeSoto and Goll.

Helen married Hugo Kruse August 18, 1926. They farmed in the northern Douglas County all their married lives on the land homesteaded by Hugo’s grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Stoltenburg. After Hugo’s death, she moved to Skyline Villa retirement home in Omaha, where she lived the past eight years. In 1972 she and Hugo were honored by Ak-Sar-Ben by receiving the Nebraska Pioneer Farm Family award, having had in the family and farming the same land for over 100 years.

During her married life, she was a 4-H Club leader for over twenty years, leading her club in projects covering cooking, she received her fifty year membership pin several years ago. Helen was a fifty year member of the Ft. Calhoun chapter of Eastern Star. She and Hugo were members of the Ft. Calhoun Presbyterian Church for many years and took an active interest in church activities. Helen also had time for vegetable and flower gardening and needlecraft of all kinds.

Helen is survived by her three children, Jeanette (Mrs. Roland Miller) of Elkhorn, Nebraska, Robert of Milpitas, California and Eugene of Pender, Nebraska; eleven grandchildren, and her three sisters, Mrs. Julia Melotz of Omaha, Mrs. Gertrude Heise of Blair and Mrs. Alma Larsen of Omaha.

Services were held at the Ft. Calhoun Presbyterian Church March 4, 1985. Burial was at the Ft. Calhoun Cemetery.

*death date from Ft. Calhoun “Find A Grave” gravestone picture; Plot: Section R, Block 50, Grave 8 ; Find A Grave Memorial# 18175882

~~~ Obituary courtesy of the Washington County Genealogical Society. Newspaper clippings on file in the Blair Public Library at Blair, Nebraska.~~~