Bee-ing Compassionate

Article as it appeared in the Suburban Journal - West County newspaper on June 23, 2010. First of four columns for me to write for the Opinion Shaper commentaries.

Carrying on a legacy of carrying for animals


By Bonnie Krueger

The "getting to know you" ice breaker question� in my women's Bible study was "List one good trait passed on to you from your family, and on the reverse, list one you wish you hadn't acquired and would change."

Compassion for animals was my immediate response for the positive trait. Not that my dad was anti-animals, but it was really my mom and grandma who exuded this from their core beings.

Having numerous conversations with my mom about her love for animals, I knew that this was a multi-generational love. In addition to being an incredible gardener, my great-grandpa Thomas cared for his bee farm where he had a successful business canning honey.

My family is enjoying the last harvested jar, which was canned on June 13, 1954. I treasure each drop,� and will find it bitter-sweet when the last of it is consumed.

I recall a summer day as a teenager watching my mom lovingly rescue a honey bee from our in-ground pool. "He is still alive, poor thing," she said to me. "It is struggling so hard to save itself."   She held it softly in the palm of her hand, patiently waiting for its wings to dry out and for it to reclaim his zapped strength. After several minutes of holding it - meanwhile sharing with me bee stories from her grandpa - it finally reclaimed his strength. The bee walked around the palm of my mom's hand before finding its equilibrium and flying off into the wind.

My mom's true character shined for me in that moment. Most people wouldn't have taken the time to give the bee a second thought.

My grandma who lived in a Chicago suburb maintained a large animal farm. At the pinnacle of her farming, she owned sheep, goats, peacocks, chickens, pigeons, roosters, ducks, geese, rabbits - even a few spider monkeys and pet raccoons. Visiting her was joyful. I loved the goats. There was Ginger, Little Gin, Brownie, Cocoa, Bonnie and Clyde.

Despite the plethora of animals to enjoy at the farm, it is still my mom's example that impacted me the most. In the last 20 to 25 years of her life, she lived out her belief system in animals. She became a strict vegan and began using beauty and cleaning products that did not contain animal products, and refused to use products that were tested on animals.

Having grown up with dogs, it was interesting to see her develop a love for cats. She became active in fostering kittens and cats, with literally hundreds of them passing through the� specially designed� living area of my parent's home. On any given week her agenda would also include injured duck rescues. Yes, my mom was faithful to who she was and lived it out fully.

Knowing my mom, grandma and great grandpa's history, I certainly understood their passion. People had failed them - time and time again - but animals were always faithful.

My mom told me something that struck a chord with me that I'd like to pass on to you.� Animals cannot help themselves. They are at the mercy of other animals and the people they encounter.

She often said a person's true character was shown in how they treat animals and how animals responded to them. Treasures in heaven, she said, were stored up for those people who dedicate their lives for the least of God's creations.

Bonnie Krueger of Manchester is one of 12 West County area Opinion Shapers. Opinion Shapers are guest writers who submit a column three times a year on areas of interest to them. Krueger is a homemaker, who enjoys researching family genealogy. She blogs at bonsheart.blogspot.com and bonsbrain.blogspot.com.

A Father's Presence

Appears as originally published to http://stlfamilylife.com/ on Sunday, June 20 on Father's Day


Remembering Fathers, Past and Present

Growing up, I was blessed. Leave it to Beaver’s got nothing on me. My parents provided me as idyllic a childhood as you can ever wish to have. I was raised by a hard-working father and a stay-at-home mom, who stayed happily married until her death in 2007, just shy of their 46th anniversary. While my mom worked a few seasonal jobs, for the most part her job was to take care of the house and us girls.

Now that I am a wife and mother, I am all that more grateful for the values and legacy my parents passed onto me. By all rights, my dad should be an alcoholic; a family trait that is rampant among the Olsen’s men. He made a decision to not allow that generational curse to affect him, defying the odds.

Still, it’s my mom’s legacy that always humbles and awes me. Without a father in her life or a Godly male influence, she still chose an amazing man to marry and raise a family. Again, I am forever grateful. If you were to ask her about her father, my mom would have told you that she did not have much to say about him. She only knew a little about him, and had even fewer memories.

His name was Franz Bohn, an ethnic German man who worked as a butcher. Like a lot of Germans, he was obstinate and strong-willed. Even though she was only 5 when she last saw him, she remembered him being a heavy drinker, probably an alcoholic, who ruled with an iron fist. My mom supposed my grandma Anna married this older man to escape the abuse she suffered at the hands of her own dad, Thomas. Sadly, Franz was a mirror-image of his father-in-law and the patterns of abuse continued for my grandma into her marriage.

When asked what she remembered about him, my mom could only recount one memory—and it was a disturbing one at that. While still living in their small town in Yugoslavia, she was arguing with her cousin, whom she was playing with at the time. It angered her dad and he chased her with one of his butcher knives. She could not have been more than 5 years old at the time.

Between 1944 and 1947 she had been separated from her father when the Russian Red Army invaded Yugoslavia and forced the citizens to evacuate their homes, stripping them of their possessions and belongings. The able-bodied men were taken to fight for the Russians, while able-bodied women were taken by coal car to Russia to work as slaves. For the youngest of the victims, like my mom who was 6 years old, and for the oldest victims like her grandparents, they were imprisoned in camps within Yugoslavian towns, much like the Holocaust. When my great grandparents, my grandma, and my mom escaped the camps 3 years later, they did not reunite with her father.

Her last memory of her father was a passive one. Before immigrating to the United States in 1950, she recalled someone pointing out that her father was across the street. She ignored him and continued to walk on without glancing his way. When I asked her years later why she chose to look the other way rather than reunite with him, her answer was simple. He had abandoned them after the genocide ended, making a clear decision to not be a part of his daughter’s life.

My parents and grandma returned to Yugoslavia in 1995. They reconnected with family still living in the home next door to where my mom grew up. It was during that visit that she learned a little more about the biological father she did not really know. She was also given a contact number of how to reach him. Sadly, when she called, he had already died a few years earlier. While she had not allowed being fatherless to impact her life, I imagine speaking to him would have provided a peace and allowed their relationship to go full-circle. It was not meant to be.

So as Father’s Day nears, I am eternally grateful for the dad I was blessed to have. He is loving, kind, involved and protective. He loved our mom and was a great role-model. His influence and example lead me to an equally amazing husband. Together he and I are raising our children in a healthy, balanced home. I have a lot to be grateful for—every day.



Bonnie Krueger is a mom, wife and blogger living in West County. She blogs about family, marriage and random musing at Inside my Head. Her second blog is dedicated to the memory and history of her mom who was a concentration camp survivor after WW2 in Yugoslavia. This blog, Heart Speaks, is written to educate people on the genocide by the Russians that so few people actually know about it.