Obituary of Delton Herbert Krueger

" My life goes on in endless song "

Delton Herbert Krueger was born on February 11, 1929, on a farm near Dutch Charley Creek in southwestern Minnesota. A cold snap with true Minnesota winter temperatures was just ending. Parents Rudolph and Mathilda (Pooch) Krueger were both second-generation Americans whose families came from Germany in the 1850s. Delton joined brother Lowell and was followed five years later by Arlin. Lowell was considerably older and left home a few years after Delton was born, but Arlin was a constant childhood companion.

The farm shaped Delton’s early years, and memories of this time remained a lifelong source of grounding and comfort. He recalled holding his dad’s hand while walking down to the barn at night with a kerosene lantern; the noise and glow of the forge; the scent of the smokehouse; the warnings against entering any pen containing a bull or a boar; the care that the draft horses took to avoid stepping on small children; the Famous Dog Sport who brought the cows in for milking.

“The life of a boy was given to exploring the farm yard and the pasture, helping with chores like gathering wood for starting fires, bringing in corn cobs for the cook stove, gathering eggs from hens who were not all that eager to have their eggs taken, feeding the chickens, helping to feed cows, horses, and pigs, and watching my dad and Lowell do farm work that would probably someday be my work.”

Delton learned to drive the tractor when he could still barely reach the clutch and brakes. The boys were taught to work hard no matter the conditions. Harvesting grain on a hot, humid late-summer day while wearing long pants and sleeves to avoid painful scratches, Delton developed heat exhaustion, and he was always a bit sensitive to heat afterwards.

Delton and Arlin attended the one-room District 16 school a couple of miles from the farm. They occasionally walked home from school, but their parents usually drove them due to potential dangers posed by those suspicious of Germans in the time leading up to the war. Rudolph had gone to school only through fourth grade and Mathilda through sixth; Lowell started eighth grade in the nearby town of Lamberton, but the “city” boys abused farm kids mercilessly and he soon quit. At the District 16 school, there were usually 11 students. The only teacher Delton clearly recalled years later was Miss Longbottom (“what boy could ever forget that name?”). Despite their own lack of opportunity, Rudolph and Mathilda valued education and life-long learning.

When Delton was 12, the landlord sold the farm and the family was forced to leave. The options were to try to find another farm to rent, with little prospect of ever getting ahead, or move to town to make a living another way. Redwood Falls had the best schools, and “Mother felt that education was the only way out of the landless poverty social class.” The humiliating experience of seeing all worldly goods auctioned off and leaving the farm resulted in permanent emotional scars. Everything was different in town and a rural kid had to sink or swim in the new reality.

Because the farm was sold in March, Delton entered seventh grade in the midst of the school year. “From a farm to town in a day. From a school with 11 students to a school with 20 or more children in one grade. It was sudden and strange. The most memorable class at first was Penmanship. The Palmer Method of Penmanship was taught by a strict teacher. There was the repetition of making circles on the paper with a genuine quill pen that had to be dipped into the inkwell on the desk ahead of me. Learning smooth and readable cursive writing was the goal. My fingers knew how to milk cows, pitch manure, and chop wood. It took a while to make the adjustment.”

In dealing with the established town kids, survival was the name of the game. “They demanded tribute but did not beat me up probably because they felt I was just too puny to bother with. Making some friends among the boys was a benefit. At least one boy was even more frightened than I was and so we got on well. Getting into the Methodist church youth group helped pave the way toward a social presence. It was the one safe social place.”

Several high-school teachers were formative in Delton’s education and social development. “The German language teacher had so much to teach about life itself. She was good at German but even better at character formation. A woman who taught literature had a small house down by Lake Redwood and would invite some students to her home for a cup of tea.” Her instruction had a permanent influence on Delton’s writing skills.

Sports were not a factor on the farm (there was too much work to be done) and Delton’s interest in them in school was nonexistent, but he acted in several plays and sang in the choir and a boys’ quartet that once went to the nearby town of Marshall to perform on the radio. “I was quite involved in speaking and took part in a number of speech contests at other high schools. This did teach me to get up in front of people and it scared me to death especially when something had to be memorized. I did learn that if one makes mistakes, most folks in the audience are on your side because they imagined themselves in that position. That is hard to remember in the moment.”

These interests led to being licensed to do church work in 1945 and serving (while still in high school) as pastor in the small towns of Springfield and Winthrop. Also while in school, Delton worked with his father to support the family. One of their most memorable jobs was constructing drainage ditches in farm fields: designing, digging by hand, installing drain tile, and replacing the fill. It was hot, hard, dirty work of the type that strongly encouraged pursuit of good grades and higher education.

Delton graduated from high school in 1947 and became the first in his family to attend college, at Hamline University in St. Paul with some time at the University of Dubuque in Iowa. Rudolph and Mathilda supported this adventure as much as they could and Delton worked many different jobs, such as moving furniture and sorting packages at the post office. 

In 1951, at Hamline, Delton met Joan Morgen in the fellowship hall of the United Methodist church. Joan was a sophomore at Hamline and lived with her parents and sisters just a couple of miles from campus. Delton graduated that year and moved to New Jersey to attend Drew Seminary. For the next two years, he and Joan communicated mainly through letters. On a stormy day in June 1953, they were married at the Lutheran Church in Falcon Heights. They honeymooned at Bearskin Lake on the Gunflint Trail, beginning a life together in the outdoors. Joan joined Delton in New Jersey, where he completed seminary and she taught elementary school.

After being ordained in 1954, Delton’s first pastoral assignment was in a location that fulfilled a childhood dream: International Falls, in the heart of the North Woods. Delton’s first contact with the North was in the 1930s, when a young man from a neighboring farm entered the Civilian Conservation Corps at a camp in northern Minnesota. “When I heard this talked about, my thoughts flew off to how wonderful such an experience would be. Just imagine being up in the northern woods with lakes and the mystery of the pine forest. It was enough to keep a boy awake at night, especially on hot summer nights when the barn doors creaked in the breeze and the owls called.”

International Falls brought many new and educational experiences, including -45° nights, the parsonage heater that glowed red on those nights, and the delicate politics of a company town. There was tension in the air over relations between the unions and paper mill management. This was common in communities of the north country, including the mining towns on the Iron Range to the south.

Church members mainly worked at the mill or in the woods. “My work as a pastor meant being involved with birth, death, marriage, family troubles, illness, addictions, and people in trouble with the law. Most of the folks I knew were certainly not wealthy and most lived in basic housing.

The pastoral calling could be especially exciting.  I recall once making the mistake of going to the door of a house without first figuring out where the dogs were. I got almost to the porch when a large, menacing dog appeared. Somehow, I was able to back up to the car and get in. When I started the car the dog grabbed the front tire, and I could feel it on the steering wheel. The moral of the story was to always wait to get out of the car until someone came to the door.”

Martha was born at the Falls in December 1955. The delivery room was on the north side of the hospital and memorably cold. Margaret followed in 1957. Both kids were “taken out on the ice of Rainy Lake, on a sled, when just several months old. Breathing that cold air obviously blessed them with stamina.”

The bishop wanted Delton to move to a new church after three years, but he insisted on staying in the Falls for another year. In 1958, the family moved to the delightfully named central Minnesota town of Cosmos, where Delton was also responsible for the Lake Lillian and Spring Grove churches. The proposed moving van was a stock truck. Delton, being a farm boy, knew exactly what this meant, and made it clear that this would not be acceptable. Somehow a regular moving van was obtained.

Cosmos had a population of about 300. Lake Lillian and Spring Grove were even smaller. These churches were seen as the bottom of the barrel by fellow clergy, but Delton and Joan found most of the members to be wonderful people. “The Cosmos congregation was small but so was the building. Farmers, business people, retired folk were the members. The Sunday school was active as was a confirmation class and youth group. Lake Lillian was an open country church with a tall steeple and a dignified cemetery. The sanctuary was basic with pews and an altar table with a cross. A piano provided music. Clear glass windows meant nature provided reminders of the creation. Spring Grove was a very simple building, a traditional sanctuary with pews, an altar, and a pump organ for music. Windows with no screens provided ventilation and made it possible for flies and even wasps to join in morning worship.” Janet was born while the family lived in Cosmos.

The next move, in 1961, was to Princeton, which was in a circuit with Spencer Brook and Onamia. Delton was instrumental in founding the Central Minnesota Parish, a multi-denominational group of clergy. Life was busy with a growing family and a focus on community involvement including chairmanship of the Housing Authority of Princeton, co-founding the first Counseling Center, and collaborative work with local law enforcement. Elizabeth was born in Princeton in 1965 during a winter so extreme that Joan had to walk the two blocks to the hospital as driving was too risky. The same year, Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge was founded near Princeton. Its sand plain, hills, and marshes became a favorite destination on weekends.

Delton’s main annual vacation was a two- to three-week camping trip in August when the family packed the car and drove west. They went to Glacier National Park nearly every year, and then often onward to places like Banff or Vancouver Island. All his daughters would say that these trips were the highlight of the year and an influence on the course of their adult lives.

Delton belonged to a camping and canoeing group of fellow ministers called “the Half Dozen, sometimes + 1”. For over 50 years they canoed and fished the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota. Delton was the last living member of this group, a fact that amazed and saddened him. In later years, Delton missed having these perfect friends: United Methodist ministers familiar with Sigurd Olson, the spectacular north country, and practical jokes.

In late 1974, Delton was offered a position as superintendent overseeing churches across a vast area of northwestern Minnesota. Martha was in college by then and Margaret was a senior in high school, so she stayed with a friend in Princeton while the rest of the family moved to Alexandria. Just before the scheduled move in January 1975, the “blizzard of the century” brought most of Minnesota to a standstill. Heavy equipment was brought in to plow the Princeton driveway, and the moving truck needed to make a couple of runs to get up the hill to the Alexandria house.

District superintendency involved driving many miles in all weather to visit and review each church annually. Except during snowstorms, Delton enjoyed his travels in the north woods and Red River Valley. He would often camp at state or county parks on overnight trips. Just to be difficult, he chose to do this even in the depths of the Minnesota winter. Joan took this reasonably in stride but congregations were often startled (“he’s doing what?”). During this time, he served as a delegate to the United Methodist Church general (national) conference several times.

Delton’s term as superintendent ended in 1980. The next destination was Bloomington, on the south edge of the Twin Cities. Moving occurred on a hot day in June. The parsonage was near the airport and, as the long day ended, jets roared overhead in the dark and shook the windows. There may have been some doubts in Delton and Joan’s minds at this point.

At the Portland Avenue church, Delton’s early-adopter tendency led him to obtain his first computer. He used the bulky Sperry mainframe to track church attendance. As technology advanced, he was always curious about how it could contribute to the spiritual mission. After learning HTML, Delton constructed an interfaith calendar website that continues to this day.

Delton’s first grandchild, Jessie, was born in 1985 in Quinault, Washington. For the first few years, the family lived in an old house far out in the rainforest, with no electricity or water (other than a manual pump). This was a familiar setting, not unlike the farm, and he enjoyed visiting the new family member there.

In 1988, Delton was appointed council director for the Minnesota annual conference (the state headquarters). This was probably the most stressful and least rewarding of his church assignments. He also served as an on-call chaplain at the main downtown Minneapolis hospital, which was always interesting, occasionally harrowing, and provided at least one opportunity to short-sheet the bed in the chaplain’s quarters.

Delton and Joan bought their first house at this time, on Penn Avenue in central Bloomington. It was a very comfortable house with a nice yard, including a woodsy, overgrown section in the very back. They took good care of the property and enjoyed getting to know the community and walking along Nine Mile Creek.

In 2000, Delton retired from active ministry. He and Joan camped, traveled to see the kids and their families, and stayed involved in their local church and community organizations.  He was a founding member of the Mall Area Religious Council. He wrote and published Portable Guide to World Religions in 2007 and maintained several online blogs relating to his interests.

Janet and Gil’s son Ben was born in 1999 and daughter Martha Rose in 2002. Because they were just across town in St. Paul, Delton and Joan were able to see them often, including at Sunday dinners for many years.

As so often happens, health issues associated with aging eventually interrupted. Joan was beset by Alzheimer’s disease, which necessitated a move to a townhouse at nearby Masonic Homes in 2012. Anyone who has dealt with this brutal condition understands the stress and exhaustion of caregiving as the patient’s capacities decline. By spring 2014, Delton’s health was suffering and it was necessary for Joan to move to a dedicated facility for care, where she passed in the summer. Delton later moved to Founders Ridge in Bloomington and then, following a stroke, to Episcopal Homes in St. Paul, only a mile from daughter Janet. These sometimes difficult days were always brightened by visits from old and new friends and contact with family.

Throughout his life Delton found joy and meaning in relating to other humans, in sharing his thoughts through letters, poetry, and conversation, and in appreciating the beauty and simplicity of the natural world. He and his forever partner Joan were inspired by the following words:

My life goes on in endless song

Above Earth’s lamentation

I hear the real though far-off tune

That sounds a new creation

Above the tumult and the strife

I hear the music ringing

It sounds an echo in my soul

How can I keep from singing