MOM’S MEMOIRS – IRENE LOUISE (NEE KUCKKAN) MUELLER
(Continued)
Mom’s Autobiography – Chapter 26 – In Book, Page 61
Lord and Savior Church Dedication, Christmas Eve, Christian Day School Opened, Stained Glass Windows, Pipe Organ, Steeple And Carillon, Eunice’s Eggery, Dick And Wanda In Wonder Lake, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary In Ministry, Deb And Glen Come From California, Sue At Radiology School, Mom Mueller’s Cancer
The first service in the new church was held on October 8, 1978, and Dedication Day was October 29, 1978. After it was finished and after a big snow storm, a reporter took a beautiful night picture of the church which appeared in the Crystal Lake Herald on Friday, December 1, 1978. The caption says: “Falling snow dances in the light of the spotlight that allows the crosses to stand out during the storm and bears witness to the snow being blown against the church’s face. The new Lord And Savior Lutheran Church stands on Rt. 14 between Crystal Lake and Woodstock, just west of McHenry County College”.
We remember when the wonderful cross for the inside of the church came the day before Christmas Eve. It was quite a big and heavy cross, and when the one man who brought it saw what a big job it would be to put it up, he took off back to Milwaukee. So the members of the congregation got together and put it up. They were at the church until 2:00 in the morning. What a joy it was to see it up over the altar, just in time for the Children’s Christmas Eve Service in our new church building! How thankful we all were! And how thankful Dick and I were to our gracious God for providing Lord And Savior with all those wonderful God-loving people.
This Christmas Eve of 1978 was especially a blessing because we were worshiping in our new church building. It brings tears to my eyes thinking of it. There was the Christmas tree with dear Mrs. Marquardt’s Chrismons on it. There was the smiling, beaming, face of my dedicated husband and all the sweet faces of our little ones singing and telling of the wondrous birth of our Savior. When we sang “Silent Night”, each one of us held a lighted candle and the lights of the church were turned off. Dick said when he looked out at all those happy faces holding their candles, he could not help but have tears in his eyes – it was such a wondrous sight! How thankful we all were to have a house of God where we could now have our services, Bible classes, Sunday School, meetings, Vacation Bible School, Easter breakfasts, etc.!
The Lord continued to bless Lord And Savior richly. More and more wonderful people came, and it was not long after the church was built that the congregation decided to start a school in the fellowship hall of the church. Miss Sandra Tessin (Knoblock) was the first teacher. When more children (including some of our grandchildren) came, a mobile home was bought, moved onto the church property, and Mrs. Vera Anderson taught the lower grades there. Mr. Rollin Timm, a New Ulm graduate, was called to teach the upper grades after Miss Tessin was married.
More and more people came to God’s house of worship, so that Lord And Savior went to two services. The parking lot was enlarged. Stained glass windows (the Bible story and doctrinal idea designs for them were written down by me as Dick dictated them on our way to Hartland, Wisconsin) were made by Pastor Behrens, who at the time was pastor of Zion Lutheran church there. The windows and a wonderful pipe organ were donated by Mrs. Hedwig Welander, one of Lord And Savior’s members, of Woodstock, Illinois. Before the pipe organ, Lord And Savior had a tube organ. Mr. Dave Roberts, husband of Carole, our organist, changed that organ to a digital organ. Then the pipe organ was donated, and Mr. Marowsky of Jefferson, Wisconsin, came and built it, with the help of Mr. Roberts. What blessings the Lord poured on Lord And Savior!
Mr. Arthur Thon and his wife, Margaret, asked us to come to visit them one day. When we sat down in their living room, they spread plans on the floor in front of us, plans for a steeple with a carillon for the church, which they wanted to donate. We were astounded! More blessings! They owned a greenhouse, and every Christmas they donated many Poinsettias to the church; also a very large one every Christmas to us.
Dick and I visited many members who were shut-ins, and Dick had devotions with them. One older couple was Mr. Ernest and Mrs. Elsie Foote. Sometimes when we would visit them, Mrs. Foote would kid my husband and say, “you’re getting fat, Pastor”, and in the next breath, she would come with a box of candy and say, “have some candy, Pastor”. One time their niece was at their home, helping Mrs. Foote set the table for coffee and sweet (as the British say). Mrs. Foote took a plate out of the buffet and dropped it. Her niece said, “Oh, Elsie, you broke one of your good China plates”, and Mrs. Foote answered, “so what!” They were a very dear couple.
Mr., Charles Rigg, was Manager and served as advisor for Sage Products, Crystal Lake. When our son, Steve, needed a job, Mr. Rigg gave him one. When we went to visit him as a shut-in, we noticed John Wayne’s picture hanging on their wall. Mr. Rigg was a John Wayne fan. Mrs. Rigg’s dear “Charlie” went to his eternal home July 9, 1992. My “choir buddy”, Mrs. Eunice Rigg, decorates all different kinds of eggs (even exotic ones such as Australian Emu and Pharaoh quail) in her home. Eunice’s Eggery beautifully decorates everything from jewelry, music boxes, wedding cake tops, clocks, and more from egg shells.
There were (and are) so many good Christian people at Lord And Savior, so many willing and faithful volunteers who helped the little seed, Lord And Savior, grow and yield much abundant fruit.
Cary Mueller, daughter of our son, Dick, and his wife, Wanda, was born June 14, 1978. After Cary was born, Dick decided after four years of being in the Marines to come out of them and they moved to a home in Wonder Lake, Illinois, about 15 miles from Crystal Lake, about May, 1979. Dick found a job working with computers at Motorola, Nuclear Data, and with MRI machines at Toshiba. The members of Lord And Savior and we were very happy when they joined our congregation, Dick and Wanda becoming very active members. Our birds, along with additions, were starting to come home to the nest.
On November 11, 1979, Lord And Savior congregation celebrated my husband’s 25 years in the ministry (he had been ordained into the Holy Ministry at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church, Crivitz, Wisconsin, on June 27, 1954). Our Debbie flew from California to be with us. Pastor Wilbert Krueger, Dick’s classmate, preached a very meaningful sermon. Pastor Kenneth Gawrisch was the Liturgist. It was a blessing that all six of our children were able to be with us. And it was a special blessing that Dick’s Mom came from Jefferson, Wisconsin, where she lived. The meal served by our Ladies Aid was absolutely delicious! What a day to remember!
Debbie, Glen, and now Nicole, David, and Mark, born August 9, 1980, moved from California to Crystal Lake in May, 1981. After looking for a house, they found one almost across the street (near Coventry School) from us. Glen found a job with Orkin Pest Control (wow – he had some stories to tell!), Debbie found a job at the YMCA teaching swimming, Nicki and David attended Coventry School (practically in their back yard), and Dick and I babysat Mark. What a sight it was when little Mark marched up the steps of houses when we were out visiting! And what a blessing it was for Lord And Savior congregation when they joined it. As Dick preached his inspiring sermons, our family was starting to fill two pews, especially when Tim, Sue, Jenny, born March 21, 1980, and Timmy, born September 19, 1981, came from Milwaukee on weekends while their father was attending the Seminary. Dick and Wanda were later blessed with two more children, Kelly, born June 21, 1982, and Christopher, born September 21, 1984.
While Sue was going to Radiology School in Elgin, she went to Northwestern Prep to help Steph move into the dorm, and to visit Ken Nelson, with whom she later broke up. After this visit she told her father and me, “ Mom, Dad, I’ve met the most perfect guy”. He is James Weiland who graduated from Wisconsin Lutheran High School in Milwaukee and came to Northwestern College. She had a dreamy look on her face. He was, and is, THEE one for her. So now we also had Steph, Jeff, Sue, and Jim also coming to Crystal Lake on weekends. What joyous occasions they were! More and more leaves filled the dining room table, and as time went on, the table and card tables stretched from the dining room around into the living room. When we had barbecues in the back yard in the summer, our Steve built a VERY long table!! And those two pews in the church which were starting to fill up were almost filled up now.
Mom Mueller went to Renton, Washington, every winter to be with Helen, Dick’s sister, her husband, Carl, and their four children, Mark, Christine, Carla, and John. She usually came back every Spring before Easter. We didn’t know she was back in the Spring of 1978 until one day she called us and said that she was going into the hospital in Fort Atkinson to have an operation. She had a mastectomy. It was quite a shock because we hadn’t known that she had cancer of her breast. Doctor Quandt told us that she had waited too long; that she tried to “wish the big lump away”.
The cancer spread from her chest to her back, then to the rest of her body, finally into her bones. But she being the plucky woman that she was stayed in her house in Jefferson for three years until one morning she called us and said that “she hadn’t slept all night, but had been screaming in pain”. Dick and I “scolded” her, and got into the car right away and brought her back to Crystal Lake. Toward the end of November Mom wanted to go back to Jefferson to check on her house. The roads were terribly icy that day, but she did not notice like she usually did. She was that sick.
We took her to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Elgin (yes, the same hospital where our Sue had received her X-ray training) every week for radiation treatments. The doctor showed us (including Mom) scans of how much the cancer progressed.since we had first taken her to St. Joe’s. When I think of it, I do not know if that should be done. The doctor told us that radiation treatments only “prolonged a person’s life”.