Obituary of Walter George Kruse

Walter Kruse age 72 years of Rosenort and formerly of Kola, Manitoba passed away at his residence in Rosenort on May 6, 2017.

He leaves to grieve, but not without resurrection hope, his wife, Anne (nee Martens), two daughters: Krista (Nathan) Pederson Erika (Kurt) Armstrong, three sons: David (Tammy), Rolf (Angela), Paul (Heather) and 22 grandchildren.

Walter George Kruse was born January 1, 1945, in Teulon, Manitoba to George and Helen Kruse (nee Dyck). He was baptized as a baby, and was a toddler when the family moved to Inwood to open a restaurant. He grew up speaking German but quickly took up English when he started school and was chased around the playground by the bullies who did not appreciate his German-immigrant heritage.  

In 1956 the family moved to Brandon to operate a restaurant for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and in 1960 they were transferred to the CPR restaurant in Moose Jaw. That summer, Walter and his younger brother Alfred worked for Soo Line, selling drinks and sandwiches to passengers. In the fall he returned to Brandon for high school at Neelin. Alfred encouraged him to attend an evangelistic Gospel meeting where he heard the good news of Christ and became a believer.  

In 1964 Walter dropped out of his high school Power Mech program and booked passage across the Atlantic on a freighter. He bought a bicycle and spent several months riding across Europe, visiting his father's family along the way. When he returned to Manitoba he enrolled in classes at Steinbach Bible Institute to complete his high school deficiencies. 

In 1966 he started teacher’s training at Brandon University, and that fall he met a beautiful nursing student named Anne Martens at a birthday party. They started dating and were engaged before the end of the school year. He was baptized at the EMC church in Kola, and Walter and Anne were married on August 12, 1967. They had five children:  David, Krista, Erika, Rolf, and Paul, and 22 grandchildren.  

In 1978 Walter completed a BA at Brandon University. He won a religion scholarship for an epic poem he wrote called “The Conversion of Buddha to Judaism,” and he received the history medal from Stanley Knowles. A true man of letters, Walter was well read in history, geography, politics, and literature. He taught elementary school in Churchill, Kola, Virden, and Paraguay, and he worked as a sign-language instructor and teaching assistant.  

He spoke High and Low German (which he learned from his wife), dabbled in Spanish, and made an effort to learn a few words in many other languages. He wanted to engage anyone he might meet with at least a simple greeting or a sentence or two. He did not use his education to belittle those who had less, but to enlarge their view of the world.  He made lifelong friends with students, colleagues, co-workers, and neighbours. [which helps explain why this room is so full this morning.]  

Alongside his intellectual interests, Walter also worked extensively with his hands. As a young husband he helped his in-laws on their farm and with their logging business. Throughout his life he made countless objects from wood, both professionally as a finish carpenter and framer, and as a pastime. Everything he made had a distinct style. He built his family’s house on the acreage outside Kola, and he made small wooden toys and boomerangs for kids and grandkids, signs, and elaborate, decorative wooden boxes. He built cozy cabins with ornate carved details, and an un-insulated shelter called “the laube” just south of the house, where he spent thousands of evenings by the fire, writing letters by candlelight. In mid-life he worked for a stonemason, and when he was 62 he decided he ought to do penance for the ecological debt he had incurred as a young lumberjack. He joined his son Paul’s treeplanting crew and traveled to Prince George for a summer of tenting and mountainside planting. Walter was a terrible treeplanter. It’s a job that requires a high degree of recklessness, and Walter planted trees as he lived his life: slowly and with precision. He didn’t plant very many trees, so he didn’t make very much money. But everyone in the camp loved him because he told fantastic stories and was always a patient listener.  

He enjoyed listening to music, from Haydn and Handel to Amazonian folk music, and he could play harmonica, violin, upright bass, and recorder. He sang in quartets and in choirs, and with his family in the car and at mealtimes. In 2005 he recorded a collection of his favourite folk songs on his nylon string guitar, accompanied by occasional whistling.  

Walter became a member of the EMC Church in Kola, but was also part of congregations in Virden and Rosenort. Baptized United, raised Lutheran, awakened in the Alliance, discipled in the Salvation Army, exposed to Anabaptism, embraced by the Baptists, and appreciative of the Anglicans, he was at once an orthodox, evangelical churchman, and a childlike realist, seeing the good and the beautiful in those he met. He was a dearly-loved young adult Sunday school teacher who knew how to engage his students with philosophy, poetry, and literature, and because he was a good listener.  

It sometimes seemed as though Walter had arrived on earth 200 years late. He delighted in the simpler ways of bygone eras, leaving him happily out of step with the times. He preferred quill and ink over email, a wood fire over a furnace, wool, fur and leather over polyester and Gore-Tex, candles and oil lamps over light bulbs and illuminated screens. But his Luddite tendencies were winsome, not pedantic, and he always made room for others to join him by a fire he had built and the candles he had lit.  

Walter embraced the non-violence of his mother's Anabaptist heritage and of his new Anabaptist community, but he also respected the military heritage of his ancestors and had a love of rifles and pistols. He went on many a long, uncomfortable, adventurous, and almost entirely futile moose-hunting expedition, excursions which proved to be more about good times with friends than providing meat. But Walter’s body will be wrapped for burial in a moose hide, proof of at least one successful hunting trip.  

At the heart of his vocation was storytelling. He had a vast repertoire of stories from ancient history, Anabaptist heritage, and from his own family. He could recount stories he had read and heard, and wrote long stories of his own. Before he got sick, Walter would write roughly 200 letters in a year, many with quill and ink. He wrote of daily life and roadtrips with Anne, childhood memories, stories from Paraguay, as well as lengthy passages from his favourite books. He wrote "with a wide nib to a broad readership," but I don’t believe he ever made it to the bottom of the gallon-jug of green ink he got on sale. Last fall, and after decades of writing and revising, he published some of his best stories in a book called Desert Mailbag. He had long referred to his work-in-progress as “the bestseller,” so it was fitting for this man of letters when Desert Mailbag made the number three spot on McNally Robinson’s bestseller list.  

Walter was predeceased by his parents George and Helen Kruse, and his brother, Alfred. Throughout his illness, Walter insisted he was neither suffering from cancer nor battling cancer; rather, he said, it was a conversation with cancer. And on May 6th, 2017, the conversation came to a close. 

But Death will not have the last word.

The family of Walter Kruse plans to honour the Lord by honouring Walter with a funeral service on Saturday, May 13, at 10:30am at Rosenort E.M.C.                                                                                                                                 

The burial is planned for the next day, Sunday, May 14, at 3:00pm at the Kola EMC church

Following both funeral and interment, a light lunch and open mic will be held.

Viewing will be held at the churches before the services.