NICKOLAUS KRUSE & ANNA MARIA HILLMEYER

My father, Alois B. Kruse and his sibling were the first generation of our Kruses to be born in the United States and the names of their parents are Nickolaus & Anna Maria (Hillmeyer) Kruse.  Nickolaus Kruse was born in Heuthen, Germany on 20 December 1870. Heuthen is a small town in the county of Heiligenstadt, the district of Erfurt, the state of Thueringen in the eastern part of Germany.  Nickolaus was about 14 years old when he immigrated to America with his parents Engelbert and Marianna (Rindermann) Kruse.  Nickolaus had two brothers, Clemens and Robert and two sisters, Josephine and Mary.  After the family arrived in Texas, Nickolaus and his brothers found work where they could, to help the family.  They lived in Guadalupe County near the town of Santa Clara; where his father rented land and made a living as a farmer.  The Kruses attended church at Sts Peter and Paul Catholic Church in New Braunfels, but there is no evidence that the children went to school in the first several years after their arrival. 

Nickolaus’ parents bought the farm near Converse in 1890 and in 1891 his mother died probably in giving birth to her son; the baby died about the same time.  Nickolaus worked the farm with his sibling and his dad.  In the mid to late 1890s, Nickolaus attended school at the Lookout School which had only two classrooms and was located about 4 miles from the farm.  He kept some books of his classwork and they show him to be industrious, intelligent, and meticulous.

Nickolaus met Anna Maria Hillmeyer in the fall of 1905.  Anna was born on 16 July 1885 in Bracken which is located in Comal County.  Her parents were Alois and Magdalena (Stummer) Hillmeyer and she had one brother, Joseph, and four sisters: Magdalena, Crescentia, Theresa and Caroline.  In the early 1890s the family moved to Guadalupe County just a few miles south of Bracken and this is where Anna grew up.  In the latter part of 1905 the Hillmeyer family moved next to the Kruses.

 Nickolaus and Anna were married 23 April 1906 at Sts Peter and Paul in New Braunfels.  Anna was a loving mother to her six children: Dorothy, Marie, Leonard, Alois, Gerard, and Barbara.  She lived in what must have seemed a perfect world; she had a beautiful family and she had her parents and sibling living nearby.  But in the winter of 1918/1919 things went bad.  The Swine Flu was sweeping across the nation and hitting close to home.  Anna gave birth to a son, Engelbert, in January 1919 and both her and her son died of the flu.   The night before she died, Nickolaus took all the children into her room so that they could say goodbye to their mother.  Nickolaus reared the six children on the Kruse farm with the kids helping as best they could. 

Nickolaus was a religious man; he attended church every Sunday at Our Lady of Perpetual Help (OLPH) Catholic Church in Selma.  When the OLPH church burned down, he was involved in the rebuilding effort.  And he is remembered to this day as the gentle man that lit the candles prior to Mass.  If you happened to enter his room without knocking, you would likely find him on his knees in prayer.

Nickolaus loved his homeland, Germany, and maintained a close connection to his relatives there.  He regularly received letters from his kin and it is said that, upon receiving a letter, he would immediately go to his room to answer it.  He sent money and clothes to his kinfolk in Germany when they were in need.  He sent a wedding dress.  He sent not only one of his bibles, but both of them.  In his latter years, he kept with him a chest of his treasured belongings.  In that chest among all the letters and pictures was a small piece of paper that listed six place names of the different divisions that describe the location of Heuthen.  He really wanted his descendents to know exactly where his hometown was located.  He used to tell his children that his mother was from Mengelrode not Rengelrode (a nearby town) so that there would be no mistake in it.  Nickolaus was instrumental in the search to make the connection to the Kruses in Germany.  He opened up a wealth of information as well as giving us valuable contacts in the form of distant cousins whom we now know and love.

Walter D. Kruse
30 July 2006