MOM’S MEMOIRS – IRENE LOUISE (NEE KUCKKAN) MUELLER
(Continued)

Mom’s Autobiography – Chapter 25 – In Book, Page 58

Lord and Savior – First Years, Steph And Steve at Coventry School, Tim And Sue At Northwester, Dick In Marines, Dick Married, Tim Married, Sue Studying In Elgin, Steph At Shoreland Lutheran High School, Steph Back To Northwestern, Motor Home, Ground-Breaking For Lord and Savior Church

God blessed Lord And Savior, and it grew in numbers. One morning an older man and his wife, Mr. August and Mrs. Louise Marquardt came and said, “we came to see what you got”. They kept coming and also became faithful members of Lord And Savior.

All of the congregational meetings – Church Council, Ladies Aid, Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, church picnics, etc. were in the parsonage in which we lived because there wasn’t a church building yet. As Dick has always said, and still says, “the Lord will provide”.

Dick also served as Vacancy Pastor of ST. ANDREW’S EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH, ELGIN, ILLINOIS for three years. Before the service in Crystal Lake, he would go to the Holiday Inn in Elgin for the church service there. He served St. Andrew’s as faithfully as Lord And Savior

God continued to bless Lord And Savior until it outgrew the Lake Manor Motel meeting room. There was an empty Baptist building across the street from the motel, so it was available for the congregation’s church services. So the altar, pulpit, lectern, and communion rail were moved there. We had a beautiful Children’s Christmas Service there. Mrs. Marquardt made beautiful Chrismons which decorated the Christmas tree. Each of the children had a “piece” of the glorious Christmas story to tell, and they sang the wonderful Christmas hymns. Tad Schubring fell asleep with his head on the back of his chair, but when it came time for him to tell his piece, he woke up, said it, and went back to sleep. We never forgot that.

Things went well in the old Baptist building until just before Easter when Dick had an odd feeling and thought we should go and check before the Easter service. What a shock when we entered the building. The altar was pushed aside and the wall was being torn apart where it had been. There was debris all over the place. No one had called and told Dick or any member of the congregation. Dick remembered that Mr. and Mrs. Krepel, Amway Distributors and members of the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, had offered their home if ever the congregation needed a place to have services. They had a beautiful basement with a lot of space, air conditioning, and overhead lighting which they had especially built for their Amway business. What a blessing! So the congregation moved everything to the Krepel home. Our daughter, Stephanie, and Barbara Schmiegelt were confirmed there on April 3, 1977. Lord And Savior congregation had its services there until the Lord blessed it so richly that it was able to build a church building.

As far as our family was concerned, Stephanie and Stevie attended Coventry Elementary School across the street from the parsonage because as yet there wasn’t a Christian Day School. After Coventry School Stephanie attended Lundahl Junior High School. Stevie became a skate boarder. One day I asked him to go to the neighbors across the street because they wanted to give us tomatoes. On the way back he fell and there were tomatoes all over the road. It didn’t deter him from skate boarding though. He also had a go-cart which he drove around the Coventry School parking lot after school hours. I went over there with him. One day the Principal, Mr. Anderson, said he couldn’t do that, but I said that I came over with him and watched him. Then he allowed it, but I must admit that I held my breath when Steve zoomed very fast around the parking lot.

Tim and Sue were now staying in dormitories at Northwestern Tim was a sophomore in College and our Sue was a Senior in Prep. Our Tim had met a pretty girl named Susan Gail Brandt at Northwestern. She lived at 411 South Seventh Street in Watertown. After graduation she worked in the office of the J. C. Penney Company on the corner of Main and Second Streets in Watertown. They became engaged.while Tim was a sophomore at Northwestern College. Tim worked for his tuition at McDonalds as a Manager in Watertown, Oconomowoc, and Delafield. One night after closing a car pulled up to the drive-through at the Delafield McDonalds, and Tim had a gun pointed at him. He immediately ducked down and told the Crew Chief to duck down too. What could the robber do but drive away? Tim called the police, and went with them to find the car, but did not find it. Again, the Lord protected a member of our family and also the Crew Chief.

Our son, Dick, participated in a major NATO maritime exercise in the North Sea in October, 1976. He was one of 6,000 U. S. Marines who joined with British and Dutch Marines for a major combined amphibious landing in central Norway and a secondary amphibious landing in Denmark. The 2-week exercise involved more than 80,000 personnel, 200 surface ships, 30 submarines, and 300 aircraft from 9 NATO countries and France (there is more information in newspaper clippings about this exercise in Mom’s Photo Albums Number 26 – 1975-1976, and Number 27 – 1977-1978). Our son later told us that real ammunition was used. We found that out too while he was on that exercise because a woman came up to me and said that a Marine from Crystal Lake, Illinois, was killed in the NATO exercise, but she didn’t know his name. When the Crystal Lake Herald came out, the picture and article of the Marine was in it. Thank God it was not our son, but we were sad for the parents of the other Marine.

Dick had met a girl in Watertown by the name of Wanda Rae Sterwald, daughter of Wallace and Norma (Schwenkner) Sterwald. Norma and I played together when we were children because our parents lived not far from one another. In fact, my mother enlightened us to the fact that Wanda is our son’s fourth cousin. They were married in Good Shepherd Lutheran Church on a very cold day, January 8, 1977. Sergeant Richard John Mueller looked very handsome in his United States Marine uniform, and of course, the bride looked beautiful. When Dick went to Cherry Point, North Carolina, he had Wanda riding on the back of his motorcycle!

Susan and Tim were married on June 2, 1979, at St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Watertown, the same church in which Dick and I were married. Dick, Tim’s father, officiated at the wedding ceremony. What a beautiful couple they made! Tim had graduated from Northwestern College, and after their honeymoon they lived at 7500 West Northridge Lakes Boulevard, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Tim planned to be a Pastor, so now attended the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Thiensville, Wisconsin, again working at McDonalds for his tuition..

Now three of our “birds”, Debbie, Dick, and Tim had flown the nest. Sue graduated May 18, 1977, from Northwestern Prep and came back to Crystal Lake. She and a neighbor girl, Patricia (Pat) Biltgen, decided to attend St. Joseph’s Hospital, the School of Radiologic Technology, in Elgin, Illinois. While they were going to school, they also worked in the hospital. Sue came home one day and said she had witnessed an autopsy of an old lady. She was thankful the body was not that of a child. Sue graduated from St. Joseph’s Hospital, September 5, 1980, becoming an X-ray technician. She moved to Milwaukee, roomed with girls she knew, and worked at Northwest General Hospital there. Another “bird” flew from the nest.

After Sue graduated from Northwestern, Stephanie, being four years younger, started school at Northwestern Prep. She missed her sister, Sue. She became very homesick, actually becoming physically sick, so we brought her back to Crystal Lake. With her we decided that she attend Shoreland Lutheran High School in Kenosha. Very early in the mornings Dick and I took turns driving her halfway there, and back in the afternoons. We met a car which would pick up Steph and other students, and take them the rest of the way. It was very tiring for all of us. Halfway through the school year, Stephanie told us that she would like to go back to Northwestern, which she did. Now she was very happy there, especially when she met a boy named “Jeffrey Heitsch”, an outstanding football player, from Kansas City, Missouri. She was a member of the Color Guard, marching in the Watertown parades with other girls holding their flags, and became very popular in other things too.

When Dick and I took turns driving Steph halfway to Shoreland Lutheran High School, both of us had on the way noticed a secondhand motor home parked on a hill near a house. We passed it many times before we decided to see how much the price of it would be. We had a tent camper at the time. The price was affordable, and gas did not cost a lot per gallon at that time, so we bought it. One of the places we used it on our vacations was Mirror Lake State Park, Lake Delton, Wisconsin. We found out that the motor home had some leakage, and the bedding in the compartment above the driver and passenger seats got wet, but it was handier to have than the tent camper. We were thankful.

Lord And Savior decided in 1977 to build a church. Where should it be built? There were three different locations which were considered. One of them was a field across from the Marquardt farm, our members. It was a wonderful corner location (9300 Ridgefield Road) next to Highway 14 between Crystal Lake and Woodstock, northwest of McHenry County College.. No one knew what the Marquardts wanted for their property. They asked Dick to find out. Most people were afraid of him, but we were not. We knew he had a warm heart, and there was a twinkle in his eye if one took the time to notice. So one day we went to visit them. Dick kept asking him how much they wanted for their property, and he hemmed and hawed until finally he said, “Pastor, haven’t you smelled a rat yet?” He and his wife were GIVING the land to the congregation. What a blessing!!! This was not told to the congregation, but on their own they decided that the Marquardt land would be the best location for the church. And then they were told! Can you imagine their astonishment and thankfulness!

The groundbreaking was on October 30, 1977. Construction of the church started in the winter of 1977 (for more information please see Lord And Savior 1985 Directory). What a joy it was to see it going up, to see the arches brought in and put up. But alas, we had a huge snow storm, but the arches persevered and stayed up. It was quite a sight to see them starkly standing against the sky in all that snow