Carl Peter Kruse was born 12 Oct 1851 at Ribe, Denmark. Ribe is believed to be the oldest town in Denmark. Ribe was a very active seaport and the capital of Denmark about 1,000 years ago. However, by the Middle Ages, the town dwindled to just a few thousand inhabitants. The area is quite flat and is mostly marsh and grassland. The most notable landmark in the area is the Domkirk (Cathedral). It is at the center of Ribe and is several centuries old.

A notable person from Ribe was the American social reformer Jacob Riis. Riis became famous for his photo essays of New York City tenements in the 1890s and 1900s. His work spawned major welfare reform movements in the early 1900s. Riis describes his childhood in the early chapters of his autobiography, "The Making of an American." Since Riis was only two years older than Carl Peter Kruse, his description of Ribe covers the very time that Carl Peter lived there.

Carl Peter’s grandparents were Anders Jensen Kruse (1769-1858) and Kirsten Nielsdatter (1769-1833). Danish census records indicate that Ander’s birthplace was Ribe, but I have been unable to find record of him before 1804. He was a shoemaker and appears to have held leadership positions in the Ribe Amt (county) shoemakers guild. After Kirsten died in 1833, Anders married Else Marie Fuglebeck (about 1802 – after 1870) and had five more children in addition to two documented children from the first marriage. One of the first two children was Jens Andersen Kruse.

Jens Andersen Kruse (1810-1891) was Carl Peter Kruse’s father. He married Henrike Hansine Nicoline Krag (1807-1870s) and they had nine children. Jens was a shoemaker like his father. Jens took an interest in politics. He was a member of the Danish Parliament for eight years from 23 Sep 1868 until 25 Apr 1876. Denmark’s first Parliament met in 1849 but there were no political parties until about 1870 when the Venstre party was formed (also known as the liberal, left, or farmer’s party). Jens was a very early, if not founding member, of this party. It is the oldest political party in Denmark. During the early years, the party worked for parliamentary democracy, universal sufferage (irrespective of income, education, or sex) and the liberalising of the church, school, adult education, local councils, and cooperative movements.

Carl was the youngest of Jens and Henrike’s nine children. Carl’s father moved just outside of Ribe in 1864 to the town of Oster Vested. The 1870 Danish census shows some of Carl’s siblings and his mother living in Oster Vested. Carl’s brother Jacob moved to Holstebro by 1870 to get into the grocery business. I have not been able to find Carl or his father in the 1870 census, but I suspect that they were living in Copenhagen while Jens was serving in the Parliament. By 1880 Carl Peter had returned to Oster Vested and was living with his father, a sister, and brother. Jens is listed as a widower.

The story passed down through the family is that Carl Peter wanted to farm but there was no land available for him to farm in Denmark. Consequently, he sought out land in the United States. Carl Peter Kruse left Denmark 11 Sep 1880 form Copenhagen on the ship Harald. He arrived in New York City on 4 Oct 1880. He must have settled in Omaha, NE, immediately or shortly after arrival, since he is listed in the 1883 Omaha City Directory.

Mabel Kruse (my grandmother) believed that he worked in a brewery and a foundry in Omaha, NE, when he first arrived. The 1886 Omaha City Directory describes him as a laborer at the Willow Springs Distillery. He filed a declaration to become a citizen on 9 Aug 1882 and was naturalized on 24 Sep 1888 at Omaha.

According to a 1907 atlas of Lincoln County, NE, Carl had moved to Lincoln County in 1882. I suspect this was a typographical error and should have been 1892. He acquired land east of North Platte, NE, on 11 Jan 1892. The land was acquired through the Tree Claim Act. The Tree Claim Act awarded 160 acres to anyone who would plant forty acres of trees on their claim within five years. Carl William Kruse (my father) says that Carl Peter worked in Omaha and commuted by train on the weekends to the farm where he planted trees. I suspect he started his claim in 1887 or 1888 and then moved to the land in 1892. The 1890 Omaha Directory is the last one with his name. He lived on the land in Lincoln County until about 1909.

Carl Peter writes in a letter of living in a sod house in 1899 and I believe he built his frame home by the summer of 1901. Therefore, I suspect that for eight or nine years he was living in a sod home. Andrew Petersen, a neighbor also from Denmark, became close friends with Carl.

Carl was a member of the Lutheran Church as a child in Denmark since the Lutheran Church is the state church of Denmark. At some point Carl became a member of the Methodist Church. Written beside Carl’s name in a family Bible is a notation about being reborn on Easter of 1899 (2 April 1899). Mabel Kruse thought that at some point Carl was removed from the Methodist Church because of his affiliation with the "Holiness" wing of the Methodist Church. I do not know if this is true. If true, it most likely occurred after 1909. He regularly attended Christian Holiness Association camp meetings.

Carl put an advertisement in a newspaper in 1899, seeking correspondence with a woman who might be interested in marriage. Lucy Augusta Holmes (1870-1906) of Harvey, IL, responded to his ad and after some correspondence they met near Opdyke, IL, in October of 1899. They continued writing over the next few months and just before the New Year Carl proposed to Augusta through the mail. She accepted his proposal and they were married 24 April 1900 at her parents’ home in Harvey, IL. They returned to NE to live in Carl’s two room sod house. They built a small home within a year.

Augusta was third of four children belonging to William Cotton Holmes (1837-1932) and Louisa L. (Pierce) Holmes (1843-1913). Both William and Louisa were from Plymouth, MA. Their ancestries go back to several of the original Mayflower Pilgrims and the early residents of Martha’s Vineyard. William fought in the Civil War. He was at the Battle of Antietam but spent most of his time stationed in Washington, DC. He was in the crowd at President Lincoln’s second inaugural address. He also met and shook hands with Lincoln.

William acquired land in northwest Missouri in 1870 where he and a few other homesteaders founded the small town of Amity. Augusta was born there in 1870. When Augusta was about 22 she encouraged her parents to move to a location where her little brother Horace could get a good education. They had heard of a new prohibitionist town being founded south of Chicago and they moved there in 1892.

Augusta traveled to Plymouth and Boston in 1895, visiting relatives. Her health had been poor and she went partly because the family hoped the trip would improve her condition. Unfortunately, her condition worsened and upon returning she had to have an operation. She spent much of the next three years battling for her health. She was bedridden much of the time.

The marriage between Carl and Augusta was controversial. First, there was the fact that Carl was 19 years older than Augusta. Second, there was the fact that Augusta was marrying an "Immigrant." Third, there was the issue that they had met through the mail. This last issue was evidently only known to Augusta’s parents and maybe some of her siblings. It was not discussed openly until after Carl Peter’s death in 1934.

Augusta became pregnant late in 1900. She returned to Harvey, IL, in the summer of 1901 to have the baby. She had had some health problems in the past and I presume she returned to IL to be near family and her longtime physician. On 28 Aug 1901 she had my grandfather Carl Holmes Kruse. She returned to Nebraska by the end of the year.

Augusta became pregnant again in 1903. I believe she stayed in Nebraska for this birth. On 1 July 1904 she had William Kruse. Unfortunately, William was a sickly baby and died three months later on 8 Oct 1904. He was buried 3 miles from the homestead across the Custer County line at New Hope Cemetery which is now connected with the New Hope Evangelical Free Church, just off highway 40.

Carl Peter wrote that Augusta and he attended all of the "religious meetings, Sunday School, preaching and revival services" they could at the two school houses 3 miles east and west of their home. I am nearly certain that the one to the west was the Spannuth School house. The other was likely at the New Hope Church. Carl noted that the minister used to stop at their home regularly to water the horses and visit because it was halfway. Carl also wrote that Augusta was often the leader of monthly meetings held in their home or the homes of others.

Augusta began to have health problems in 1906. About June of 1906 she traveled to Harvey, IL, to attend here younger brother Hoarce’s wedding and to be examined by the family doctor. She took Carl Holmes with her. Her health worsened after she arrived. She was bedridden by the time of Horace’s wedding in early July. The doctors knew that Augusta had a floating kidney and a few days after Horace’s wedding the doctors operated to see if they could rectify her problems. However, once they opened her up they discovered she had many diseased organs and there was nothing they could do for her. She died 12 July 1906 and was buried at Harvey, IL.

From what I can tell, Augusta’s oldest sister Louisa Holmes took Carl Holmes back to Nebraska later that year or the next, and stayed for a while. My father says that Carl Peter and Louisa considered marriage but it did not work out. Carl Peter took Carl Holmes to Denmark with him for a few months in 1908. Carl Peter was evidently considering moving back to Denmark but he finally decided to return to Nebraska. He located in Omaha, NE, by 1910. For the next few years Carl Holmes lived in Harvey, IL, where he attended school and was raised by Augusta’s sister Laura Elizabeth Holmes. Carl Holmes lived with his father during the summers. Then, about 1914 or 1915, Carl Holmes went to Olivet, IL, (now Kankakee) to attend a Holiness high school and Bible school. This institution is now Olivet Nazarene University. I believe Carl Holmes still returned to Omaha during the summers. Carl Holmes eventually became a minister in the Church of the Nazarene.

Carl Peter Kruse lived the rest of his life in Omaha. He was very active with the American Bible Society. He assembled Bibles and distributed them on the streets of Omaha. He regularly attended a Nazarene Church in Omaha but did not join because he did not agree that he should have to give all of his tithe to the Nazarene Church. Carl Peter double and triple tithed according to Mabel Kruse. He supported a variety of causes including missionary work in China. He also attended a church that was headed by R. R. "Radio" Brown. It was called the Gospel Tabernacle and was a Christian Missionary Alliance church.

Carl Peter died in Omaha, 24 May 1934. He was buried at New Hope Cemetery next to his son William.