Elfrieda Crouch - working in Braille

Elfrieda Crouch is 92, and has only had one real hobby. She was a volunteer for Lutheran Braille Workers for 40 years. Her work ended about a year ago, only because the method of transcribing and creating Braille Bibles and devotional books is changing with new technology.

But then, change would be the norm in nine decades of living, right? Elfrieda was born in 1922, a year when numerous radio stations began transmitting, Stalin was appointed general secretary of the Communist Party, Babe Ruth signed a three-year contract with the Yankees for $52,000 a year, Benito Mussolini took control of Italy’s government, Hitler was briefly incarcerated for disturbing the peace, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 19^th amendment and women’s right to vote, King Tut’s tomb was discovered, the creation of the USSR was formally proclaimed, and Warren Harding was the U.S. President.

Elfrieda’s life started out in a small Kansas town, near Manhattan. She had three sisters and seven brothers, and might have had even more siblings if her mom hadn’t died when she was 3. “I don’t remember her at all,” Elfrieda said. She was raised by her older sisters, with some assistance from her father, who was a carpenter.

Elfrieda Crouch, in foreground is a table her husband made

Elfrieda is a life-long Lutheran, Missouri Synod, and attended a Lutheran school until she became of high school age. Her early school memories aren’t necessarily pleasant, she said, since the minister of the church-run school practiced corporal punishment on a regular basis, usually with the classroom as his audience. (While the thought of a child being whipped might shock some people, it was commonplace at that time, and is still used today in places.) With high school came a new kind of freedom. “You didn’t have the catechism in front of you all the time,” she said.

She met her husband, Rex, at the Pla-Mor Ballroom, which was at Linwood and Main in Kansas City. It was part of a huge entertainment complex, and popular with people who liked to dance. They wed in 1946 and had been married almost 61 years when Rex died. Rex was a builder and a woodworker. He built the ranch home in the early 1960s that Elfrieda still lives in, and the home is filled with intricately carved clocks, wall décor and furniture that he made.

Partial Braille alphabet card

Elfrieda was a homemaker, taking care of the couple’s two sons, making sure meals were on the table, keeping track of busy schedules. She also was a regular church-goer, and it was at Zion Lutheran, which was then at 75^th and Belinder Road in Prairie Village, that she first heard of the Lutheran Braille Workers (LBW).

A representative of the organization had come to Zion to share information and seek volunteers. LBW, a ministry of the Lutheran-Missouri Synod, was founded in 1943. The organization utilized thousands of workers across the country to make Bibles and devotionals. Elfrieda signed up. “There were six of us,” she said. “It was an assembly line. I was at the tail end, binding papers into books.” Masters are made on zinc plates, with each page requiring its own plate. The plates are fitted on a press, then printed onto heavy paper. Books must be collated by hand or the raised dots will be smashed, making it unreadable.

Creating Braille publications by hand was labor intensive. “Each book was about 80 pages,” Elfrieda said. “It took about 10 minutes to do one book, and that’s if everybody was well and on their toes. We usually worked three to four hours.” 

Clock Elfrieda's husband made

While helping make the books was a calling and a ministry, it also led to much more. “Fellowship,” Elfrieda said. “We always had lots to talk about. And we would get together for a Christmas luncheon, things like that.”

Elfrieda said her husband was not a church-goer like she was. “I never pushed him,” she said. “If he didn’t want to go, then he didn’t want to go. But he is the one that picked out Holy Cross, though I don’t know why.” They were at Holy Cross less than two years when Rex died, but Elfrieda continues to worship there and in fact is there most Sundays.

Elfrieda is one of those people who you know right away has a zest for life. It’s not just in the way that she carries herself, or her markedly pretty skin, or her ready smile. She keeps busy with her five grandkids and two great-grandkids, and meets regularly with friends. “And I keep up with the news,” she said, catching up with world events each morning on the television.

So what is her secret to good health and a long life? After all, she has outlived all of her siblings, her husband and her oldest son. “I have no secrets to share,” Elfrieda said. “None at all. I don’t know what the future holds, and I’m not worried about it.”

Melissa Kesner - granting wishes for special kids

In the spring of 1980, an Arizona Department of Public Safety officer learned of a 7-year-old boy with leukemia, and that his one wish before he died was that he could be a police officer “to catch bad guys.” That little boy’s wish was granted, and the seeds were planted for a foundation to make a dream come true for children diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses.

Now more than 30 years later, more than 226,000 children in the United States have been granted a heartfelt wish through Make-A-Wish foundation. It takes a lot of planning, and a lot of people, to make this happen.

Melissa Kesner with her daughters and husband

Melissa Kesner became a volunteer wish granter in 1999, after she moved to Kansas City for work. She had heard of Make-A-Wish, and knew it had a Kansas chapter in need of volunteers. For her, it was a way to connect in her new home town.

“My very first wish granting experience, the wish child wanted to be in the army for a day,” Melissa said. “It was awesome - we were able to partner with a local army base and had him go through a modified basic training camp. He got to ride in a helicopter, march in a group, and he earned an award at the end!”

One her most elaborate requests was a child who wished for an International cruise around Italy. The request was challenging for several reasons –it involved international travel, and the cost was fairly extensive. The local chapter spent 15 months coordinating with international Make a Wish organizations and individuals in an effort to grant the child’s wish. It finally came through and the trip was the wish of a lifetime!

Travel is a fairly common request. “Most of the younger wish kids that I have worked with like to go to Disney World in Orlando,” Melissa said. “For an older child, almost anything is game. I have done shopping sprees, room make-overs, cruises, celebrity meetings - there are some limitations to what we can do, but for the most part this is the one time I have always said the wish recipient can be selfish.”

One child wished for a shopping spree, so Melissa and her wish granting partner arranged for a limousine to take her to Oak Park Mall, ending in a celebratory pizza party with her friends after. Another child wanted a bedroom make-over. Over the course of several  months, Melissa was able to get in-kind donations from a local design firm and mattress warehouse, and local contract teams to paint and arrange all new furniture. The day ended in a surprise reveal for the wish child.

Meeting celebrities is another frequent wish, though not necessarily singers and movie stars. “Athletes have been more of a draw,” Melissa said. “One wish kid wanted to meet the Miami Heat players and another wanted to meet the Tennessee Titans quarterback.”

An important part of the process is to ensure the child’s wish is something the child truly wants and is excited about. The process begins with a referral, usually from a child’s physician, but anyone can submit a request on behalf of a child. Once the screening process is completed, two volunteers meet the wish child and family.

“The purpose of these meetings is to understand family dynamics, understand any medical or physical limitations, and brainstorm ideas for what the child would like to 'do, see, be, or meet',” Melissa said. The brainstorming is generally done as a game, so the child imagines a variety of ideas, and eventually narrows it down to the one special wish. Some children know right away what they want, while others need a little more time to dream.

You might suppose that meeting these children would make a volunteer wish granter feel sad. Not so, Melissa said. “Most people think Make a Wish is just for those children that are terminally ill - it can be, but it is also for those kids who have had a life altering experience, but with medical care, may live a long life. I am only with the family through the wish process, and then we say goodbye. Paperwork is part of the process - but mostly volunteer wish granters get to do the fun stuff!”

Melissa comes from a background where she was regularly made aware that many people had difficult lives. Her father was a Lutheran minister in the Missouri Synod. “I grew up being familiar with people who lived or were living through challenging situations,” Melissa said. “My parents always gave back to the community and set a wonderful example for us.”

That background helps her with her job today, as a Physician Services Manager with Children’s Mercy Hospital. Melissa’s current job has required some time adjustments, so she is taking a break from wish granting but hopes to return before long. “This is an opportunity to give back,” she said, “but also a chance to really be thankful for what I have been given. These kids are a testament to facing obstacles and working through them. How can you not love putting a smile on someone's face?”

To learn more about Make-A-Wish, please visit http://wish.org. 

Sarah and Carl Persson - hiking to Mt. Everest

(Please note: All photos used in this blog are the property of Carl Persson, all rights reserved.)

What do you want to experience or accomplish in your lifetime? Most likely you can name a few goals or ideals, but chances are that hiking to Mt. Everest isn’t one of them. Especially if you’ve had back problems or torn knee cartilage.

Sarah Persson has always loved hiking. Glaciers in Alaska, the Colorado Rockies, Austria and New Zealand have all provided backdrops for the sport. But Sarah had a bigger hike in mind. In her words, “Getting to Everest is like the “pinnacle” of hikes, wouldn’t you say?”

Sarah and Carl Persson in Nepal

One of Sarah’s earlier memories is a church youth group trip to Sky Ranch, Colorado when she was 15. “I still remember Pastor Klein driving the van down I-70 and my first view of distant mountains,” she said. Sarah spent spring breaks during college hiking in national parks. She and her husband, Carl, chaperoned a Holy Cross youth group on a hiking trip to Colorado in 2001. On a 2008 Alaska hike, a guide told Sarah and Carl that she had hiked Mt. Everest. “So once I knew it was possible, I added it to my bucket list,” Sarah said.

Hiking to Mt. Everest takes a lot of preparation. But being healthy enough to consider it comes first. For Carl, that meant recuperating from ACL/meniscus surgery. He had damaged his knee while trying to catch a fly ball in a softball game. Surgery was necessary to repair the tears, followed by a period of rehabilitation. Sarah has two degenerative discs in her lower back. “At their worst, a few years ago, my discs actually had hairline cracks which allowed fluid to leak out,” she said. “It was extremely painful, and it took more than a year away from sports, doing physical therapy and walking, to recover enough to even consider a major hike.”

Sarah at entrance to Sagarmatha National Park

Once they had both recovered, they figured that hiking to Mt. Everest was now or never, so they began serious preparation this past January. Sarah and Carl braved the Kansas City winter and walked everywhere they could, nearly every day, wearing weighted backpacks. “One of our favorite training walks was actually to take glass to the recycle bins at Wal-Mart!” Sarah said. “Our coldest training walk was around two degrees Fahrenheit, and our longest training walk was around 17-miles round trip. We hiked in the snow, on the snow, and even dug up our ice spikes after one of the ice storms last winter.”

They also found a small hill along a trail that they walked up and down for over an hour several different times. “All this must have been the right thing to do,” Sarah said, “because we made it to Everest Base Camp (EBC) and back without any soreness or blisters.”

final climb to Namche

The south base camp of Mt. Everest, altitude 17,598 feet, is on the Nepal side, and is the most popular, visited by thousands of trekkers each year. To get there, you fly into Kathmandu. Sarah spent some time researching the best price on a three-leg maximum route from Kansas City to Kathmandu. Sarah and Carl’s flight took them to Chicago, where they ran to catch their 13-hour flight to Doha, Qatar. After a 14-hour layover, they left for Nepal, arriving in Kathmandu about four and a half hours later. The return trip was similar, Sarah said, except they came back through Philadelphia. 

Early morning start to Dingboche on snow covered trail

“I’ve traveled internationally before,” she said, “but I had the worst jet lag I’ve ever experienced. It probably took two weeks before I was functioning on normal time again.”

The Everest trip had some challenges, starting even before the hike. First, the airline lost Carl’s luggage for three days. The domestic flight that would take them from Kathmandu to Lukla, the trailhead, was cancelled twice, so they had to book a helicopter. Sarah got the flu, and both she and Carl got chest colds. Next came altitude sickness for Sarah. These conditions contributed to forcing them to change certain aspects of their hike.

The highlights of the trip were meeting many interesting fellow travelers, realizing that their hard training had paid off, and of course, the scenery. Sarah’s job involves sitting at a computer in a corporate environment. “So my first thought on a hike, or walk, or anywhere away from the office is ‘yay, it’s not the office!’” she said. “Hiking gives me access to clean air and unspoiled land, seeing creation the way God intended it. I get sad when I see clear-cut hillsides, paved roads in pristine wilderness, or even trash in the local park.”  

Sarah pointing to first view of Mt. Everest

A surreal and sad part of the journey occurred when Sarah and Carl had just started back down the mountain. “The day after we were at Base Camp was the single deadliest day in recorded Everest history, an avalanche killing 16,” Sarah said. “We had met people on the way up who were planning to climb, so my first thought was whether or not they were safe. We saw quite a few rescue helicopters that day, and I still get choked up over the loss of so many, especially when I hear that their families may barely receive enough money to cover the funerals.”

Sarah was aware of the hardships the Sherpas (guides) endured before she booked her trip. “The tourism industry in Nepal has changed a lot of lives there, but the real money apparently doesn’t get to the people who do the hardest work,” she said. “That’s actually why I chose a tour company based in Kathmandu rather than one which is ‘westernized.’”

Though Everest was a primary goal, Sarah and Carl hope to take a few more hiking trips while their backs and knees allow. Sarah offers the following advice for anyone considering hiking to Mt. Everest. “My advice to anyone planning a similar trip is to always put your hiking boots in your carry-on luggage, have toilet paper in your pocket wherever you go, put some kind of mask over your nose and mouth, and take lots and lots of pictures,” she said. And that’s the voice of experience.

Reaching EBC, elevation 17,600 feet!

John Kingsley - music man

When John Kingsley first sang with a group of inmates, he was rather nonchalant about how it would be. “I went in there thinking we’re going to sing,” he said, “no more complicated than that.”

John Kingsley

That was 17 years ago, after a woman named Elvera Voth was looking for volunteers to sing with her new men’s chorus of inmates from Lansing Correctional Facility in Lansing, Kansas; a group she had founded in 1995 and named the East Hill Singers. At the time, Elvera was the choral director for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. One of her Lyric performers was Michael Lanman, the son of Holy Cross mission partners Bob and Dorothy Lanman, who were good friends of John. Michael convinced his dad to join the group, who then convinced John to become a part. John said, “Initially I didn’t think of it as a ministry so much as just a chance to sing in an all-male chorus.”

Yet, John gave it his heart and a huge chunk of time in the early years, going to Lansing most Tuesday evenings and an occasional Saturday for rehearsals. The chorus is comprised of inmates housed in the East Unit, the minimum-security unit situated on East Hill, which is part of the Lansing Correctional Facility. “The East Unit is removed from the ‘big house,’ which accommodates the medium and maximum security inmates and is not a foreboding place at all,” John said.

As John sang with the inmates each week, his attitude about them began forming. “I started seeing these fellows as just people who had made some bad choices,” he said. “They’re about as typical as a group of guys could be and they are hugely appreciative of the volunteers and their current director Kirk Carson.” John added that the relationships he has formed are warm and genuine.

John describes his singing voice as bass/baritone. Singing with the inmates has been an interesting challenge at times. He explained that there are no audition requirements for the inmates, and many have never sung seriously before, or had musical training or choral experience. “As a result,” John said, “it’s not unusual to find yourself trying to stay on key while surrounded by guys with their own idea of what key we should be searching for. It’s good training, but I’ve learned to block it out, sing away and hopefully provide some leadership to the others. It should also be said that we’ve discovered some marvelously talented musicians among the inmates—both as vocalists and instrumentalists.”

John had music in his background before discovering East Hill Singers. His mother played piano and led a tiny Methodist choir in the upstate New York village where he grew up. “The choir met in our living room from the time I first remember until I left for college,” John said. “Sometimes there would be four, sometimes eight or ten but I guess that was my initiation to choral singing.” He recalls singing a solo with the choir as a young child, and some singing in high school, but didn’t do much with it until college where he finally got some instruction. He never thought of singing as a calling---simply an outlet.

 “My early goal was to design firearms,” John said. “I was very much into guns (and cars) so I spent a couple of years studying gunsmithing and arms design.” The draft and military service led to a stint in the Air Force and then marriage to his wife Mary and a job with General Electric, where he started out designing Sidewinder missiles. “That was a far cry from the kind of firearms I had in mind earlier in life,” he said.

John stayed with GE until changes in ownership and management would have forced him to move to El Paso, Texas. That was a deal breaker so he started looking for alternatives. He settled on starting Express Signs in 1988 with, what was then, new computer technology. “It seemed like an easy thing to do but I was wrong,” he said. “But my A-plan was to start a family business, and that’s what I did.”

John continues to use his voice in ways that bring him and others joy. He sings with the Holy Cross church choir, and was once the voice of the whale in a children’s musical of “Jonah” staged at a former church. He has sung with a number of quartets, including one with Holy Cross mission partners Bob Lanman, Larry Colburn and Tom Cook that was formed in the early 1990s.

About eight or nine years ago he joined the Johnson County Chorus. “That was kind of a chance thing too,” he said. His granddaughter’s elementary school music teacher, Anita Cyrier, was also the director of the Johnson County Chorus. When John attended a performance, he met the director and the next thing he knew he was a member of the chorus.

John describes the music as a bit ‘meatier’ than that sung by the East Hill group but said that in no way takes anything away from the pleasure he gets singing with the Lansing men. “The term ‘ministry’ sounds a bit too preachy,” he said. “I’ve come to view my time with East Hill Singers as simply a good thing to do—for me and, hopefully for the men.”  

Jim and Linda Fargus - a heart-stopping moment

Jim and Linda Fargus have been married 44 years. Their lives were fairly ordinary most of that time. They have a son and daughter, two grandchildren, worked long careers before retiring, took part-time jobs after retirement. They traveled occasionally and kept physically active. Then came the night Linda’s heart stopped.

Jim and Linda Fargus

Jim and Linda met in college, a small university in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, where they both landed in part because of cost and geography. They got to know each other as they waited tables in the campus dining hall. They moved to Overland Park in 1999 for Jim’s job. Both retired in 2006, Jim as a project manager with Sprint, Linda as a teacher. Shortly after retirement, Jim took a job as a math instructional paraprofessional, Linda as an adjunct reading instructor at Johnson County Community College. Nothing in their ordinary lives prepared them for what was to come.

Shortly after midnight , the beginning of the Monday that would mark their 41^st wedding anniversary, Jim was awakened by a noise.

“Linda has always been an active sleeper,” Jim said. “She would sit up in bed, have conversations, and I was pretty attuned to all of that.” So when Jim heard a noise, he did the usual, which was to pat her on the arm and let her know everything was okay and she could go back to sleep. But this night, she wasn’t sitting up in bed, and he got no response when he asked her if she was all right.

Within moments, Jim realized she wasn’t breathing. Though he had CPR training, it was sheer instinct that took over. Instinct coupled with fear and adrenaline. He moved Linda to the floor, started doing chest compressions and called 911. “I had the phone laying on the floor, it wasn’t a speaker phone, and I was yelling into it,” Jim said. All he knew was that his wife had no pulse and wasn’t breathing and he was desperately trying to save her. The 911 dispatcher told Jim to stop the compressions and give her a couple of breaths. He did so and saw her chest rise, but she wasn’t breathing on her own.

He began compressions again, until the dispatcher told him the ambulance was two minutes out, and he needed to go downstairs, open the front door and turn on the porch light. He did those things, then returned to Linda. Finally he heard the siren and knew help was near.

Soon there was a lot of commotion. Jim said there were three or four paramedics, and a couple of police officers. One of the officers escorted Jim to the hallway, and kept him company as the paramedics worked on his wife. “I heard them shock her,” Jim said. “The defibrillator talks, and I heard it three times.” Jim estimates they were in with his wife for 30 to 45 minutes, before they carried her out wrapped in a bed sheet for the ride to the hospital. Jim had called his son, who lived in town, and the two of them headed to the hospital as well.

“We sat for two hours, and didn’t know anything,” Jim said. Finally the on-call cardiologist met with Jim and his son, and explained that Linda didn’t have a heart attack. Instead, she had an episode of ventricular tachycardia, where the heart beats too fast and the ventricles can’t pump enough blood to the body. It can be severe and life-threatening. And because Linda had gone a period of time without breathing, there was a very real possibility of brain damage. Linda had been placed in a cooling suit that would lower her body temperature so that her brain wouldn’t swell, and was put into a coma.

Twenty-four hours had elapsed since Linda’s heart had stopped before Jim finally went home to rest. Though Linda went into cardiac arrest again overnight, the medical team was able to keep her alive.

When something dramatic or life-threatening happens, we oftentimes look for a sign that all will be well. For Jim, that moment came Wednesday afternoon. Linda was still in a coma, and had a breathing tube down her throat, so conversation wasn’t an option. But when Jim took hold of her hand, she knew to squeeze it, a recollection that still causes him to swell with emotion as he recounts it.

Linda remained in the hospital for eight days. Her brain activity had continually been good, a positive indicator that she would once again have a good quality of life. She has no memory of the week preceding the night her heart stopped, and very little memory of the events during her hospital stay. It’s almost as though this happened to someone else, yet she knows it’s real because of the emotion she’s seen in her husband and adult children. She finds it interesting that Jim proved to be so stalwart. “This is the one,” she said of Jim, “who when the kids fell and needed stitches, he couldn’t drive them to the hospital.”

Jim was able to step up in another way too, a way that illustrated a strong faith. He saw God’s hand throughout this experience. “I’m hard of hearing, and for me to hear something like that…” Jim said, referring to the elusive sound that woke him when Linda’s heart stopped. He also trusted that the outcome would be okay. “I always knew she could die,” he said, “but I never thought she would.” Linda enjoyed hearing this from Jim, because, as she noted, “He’s the half-empty kind of guy.”

The two of them have adopted the saying, “It’s all small stuff,” meaning they have changed their perspective on what matters and what doesn’t. “Every day, every bit of time we have together is precious,” Jim said.

Jim & Linda with grandchildren

Linda has what she calls a lump under her chest as a reminder of what happened. That lump is a pacemaker and defibrillator, tools to help keep her heart beating at a normal rate. She is once again physically active, is involved in the Holy Cross music ministry, and life continues much as it used to. Like Jim, Linda too had a moment when she knew she would be okay. That time came in November, a few months after she had returned home from the hospital, when she got to hold her first grandchild. “I just thought I might not get to see her, hold her,” Linda said.  

Jenny Moore-Jansen - a fascination with the human body

The human body is a fascinating creation, the way everything works together, what happens when something goes wrong. For Jenny Moore-Jansen, that fascination has guided her life.

Her understanding of anatomy tells her just which muscles need extra work when she’s giving someone a massage. It also helps her recognize the ravages of disease on the body she is preparing to embalm.

Jenny Moore-Jansen

Jenny is a certified massage therapist. She plans to take her national certification test this summer, which will expand where she can do massages. She also will graduate in May with a degree in mortuary science from Kansas City Kansas Community College.

The path Jenny has taken thus far is an interesting one. “I had planned to be a professional gymnast,” she said. She had to give up that dream after 18 years of gymnastics when her knee gave out. “Then I was going to be a coroner,” she said. “I wanted to do autopsies. I’ve always been interested in the human body and how it works.”

When she looked into what it would take to become a coroner, she discovered she would have to endure something like 15 years of med school, because being a coroner is more specialized. “But I thought, I want to have a family. I want to have a life. What can I do,” she said.

   

Jenny started looking into the possibility of being a funeral director, talking to people who were in the field, asking them what they thought of the industry. She already had a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, and had taken a gross anatomy class during the program, so she had some experience with dissecting bodies.

During this time, she became more acquainted with death on a personal level. She lost three grandparents in a year and a half. Then one Sunday she learned about murder when a man was shot and killed in the narthex of her church in Wichita while she was sitting in the sanctuary, next to the man’s wife, listening to prelude music.

Jenny took these experiences to heart, realizing there was much more to death than dying. Getting her degree has taught her about the funeral industry, meeting and dealing with families, products such as caskets and burial containers, embalming, restorative art, anatomy, and counseling. After graduation, she hopes to get an apprentice funeral director position at Johnson County Chapel and Memorial Gardens, where she presently works under an assistant funeral director license as the funeral administrative assistant. “I help out with visitation,” she said. “I help the funeral directors with services. I can lead a graveside service or committal service. But I can’t meet with the family on my own yet.”

Maybe you have a preconceived idea of what a funeral director looks like, or how one acts. If so, meet Jenny. She has a big mega-watt smile, a great sense of humor, and doesn’t take herself seriously. For example, ask her what movies she likes, and she’ll laugh even before she gets the words out, knowing what the reaction will be. “I love horror movies,” she said. “’Silence of the Lambs’ is my favorite.”

Working jigsaw puzzles is one of her favorite hobbies, but not those puny 500-piece things. “I’m doing a 32,000-piece puzzle,” she said. “It’s six feet by 17 feet. I’ve done two sections and have six to go. Each section has a little over 4,000 pieces.”

Jenny’s response is immediate when asked what she thinks she will bring to the funeral industry. “Empathy and patience,” she said. Those are especially important gifts in helping loved ones of the deceased. “Someone needs to be there for that person,” Jenny said, “and if I can explain to them how death happens, if I can make someone more comfortable with that, then that’s wonderful.”

“The most difficult situations involve death of a child and death from a murder,” Jenny said. “It’s traumatic for families. They’re not expecting that. I’m helping them through the process of a funeral. The grieving process is in stages. It may take two to three years; it may take six months.”

From Jenny’s perspective, the recent classes offered at Holy Cross on the “End Matters” of life were much appreciated. “I do think it’s beneficial,” Jenny said. “It starts people thinking about what they want, and what they don’t want.”

Jenny looks forward to the day when she can be a funeral director. It is her hope that she can bring joy somehow to grieving families, maybe by helping them understand a little bit more about death. And the physical work is rewarding too. “I’ve always looked at the human body as miraculous,” Jenny said, “and this confirms that.”

Stephen and Kristin Graue - local winemakers

Stephen and Kristin Graue’s odyssey into the art of winemaking came about in part because of a horse.

When Stephen was looking into where to stable the horse he planned to buy for his daughter, his wife, Kristin, suggested they buy land instead. So the couple bought 32 acres in Louisburg, Kansas, an idyllic spot in which to build a house, let a horse run, and live happily ever after.

Kristin and Stephen Graue

But, Stephen’s daughter lost interest as soon as they bought the horse. The horse turned out to be claustrophobic and wouldn’t stay in the barn they built. Kristin designed a house for them to live in on the new property, but a microburst blew it down when it was half built. They tried growing pecan trees on the land but they all froze.

Such a beginning, while challenging, never beat them down. They eventually got their house built, the horse became the family pet, and the barn was used to store whatever needed to be stored.

They were still unsure what to do with their property, until the day Kristin discovered the remains of some old grape vines and a hedge-row trellis on the property. The prospect of vineyards intrigued them. “I always liked wine,” Stephen said, “so on a trip to St. Louis, we stopped at wineries and I asked questions about the business.”

They were interested enough that Stephen, a human resources director for construction companies, attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s winemaking school at Whisky Run Creek Winery. Kristin studied winemaking through the Viticulture, Enology Science and Technology Alliance (VESTA) program, and continues to work full time at a social services agency.

“It was kind of a gradual thing,” Kristin said. They spent the next years learning about the business, renovating the barn, buying equipment and making mistakes. “Our first harvest, the birds ate all of the grapes,” Kristin said. They learned to put netting up after that. Another harvest was killed by a deep hard freeze, something they can’t do a lot about.

Stephen and Kristin spent hours before and after work, and weekends, planting, harvesting, and experimenting with wine formulas. Stephen retired last year to devote more time to the winemaking business. “Now I do the same thing but don’t get as much done,” he said.

Graue Vineyards is comprised of two adjacent vineyards, growing Cayuga, Traminette, Norton, Vignoles, Chambourcin, St Pepin, Chardonel and Muscat grapes. The Graues supplement by buying additional grapes, as well as much of the fruit they use to make fruit and mead wines. They do their own harvesting, crushing and bottling.

Making wine is hard work, and time consuming. “It takes a couple of years for us to get comfortable with the taste,” Stephen said, referring to the process before they offer a wine for sale. They opened the winery to the public in October, 2010.

Peach wine is a favorite of their customers. “They love the peach wine,” Kristin said. “It was featured at the Kansas State Fair last year.” Their wines have won nine awards, including a silver medal at last year’s Mid-America Wine Competition.

“We offer a full range of wines from dry reds and whites to sweeter styles, something for all palates,” Kristin said. Fruit wines, depending on harvest and availability, include apple, peach and blackberry.

Middle Creek Wines

“We’re in a transitional period right now,” Stephen said. “It’s a small mom and pop operation, and we want to keep control of it. But the business is telling us we need more wine, more employees, because it’s growing.”

Part of that growth involves a new endeavor. The Graues bought an old general store in New Lancaster, Kansas, approximately 367^th Street west of Metcalf. It was built in 1874 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They have been renovating the building, and plan to open it in July. “It will feature Kansas-made products,” Kristin said. That includes cheeses and Middle Creek wine of course.

Middle Creek Winery and Graue Vineyards, 4353 W. 351^st St., is a member of the Somerset Wine trail, and is open to visitors from noon to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. You can find more information by visiting www.middlecreekwinery.com or on Facebook.