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The Last Kraus: One family, 10 HHS grads over 22 years

Meredith Kraus, right, shown at sister Judith's wedding, graduates from Hendersonville High School on June 9.

By Bill Moss, Published: June 9, 2017

PART 6: ‘Love is a choice’

When you ask a Kraus about growing up, two things always come up.

“I think the most resounding thing that comes from my parents is to always be honest,” said Samuel, 28. In the Kraus house “there was no drama.”

The kids said what they thought. If a sibling hurt their feelings, they said so. Disputes were settled on the spot. Nothing lingered.

“My dad would always say, ‘Things are going to turn out a lot better for you if you’re honest,’” Samuel said. “In high school and college, friends would say, ‘My gosh, you guys are so honest!’ And they said it in a way that it wasn’t really a compliment.”

That honesty even applied to the story of Santa Claus. To keep track of different Santa stories for different ages would have been impossible.
“Santa’s a symbol of Christmas but we never promoted him,” Kathleen said. “I never wanted to lie to our children. I felt like it would be lying to them to tell them that there is a Santa Claus.”

* * * * *

The engine pulling the train? “Love is a choice.” Kathleen first heard it from Ken when they were courting.
“I didn’t think there would ever anybody to love me because I had just been rejected,” she said. “I was pregnant and had a baby and the person didn’t want me. So now I thought if they didn’t want me before I had a baby, nobody’s going to want me with a baby. I had to resign myself to that, that I would be alone and raise my child by myself.”
Then Ken came along.

Ken taught Kathleen and family: 'Love is a choice'“I would say, ‘Why do you love me?’ Because I wanted him to tell me something about me,” she said. “And he would say, ‘Because I choose to love you, and love is a choice.’
“That was such a foreign concept to me — that love is a choice. That it’s not a feeling — yeah, all that stuff comes later but right now it’s a choice, choosing to get to know me and choosing to go out with me and choosing to think about me in a long-range perspective. I’d never experienced anything like that.”

It wasn’t something Ken and Kathleen talked about so much as it was something they modeled. “They got under each other’s skin,” Judith said. They disagreed and argued, as every couple does. But they never let minor differences interfere with the bigger priority.

The Kraus children who are married with children say what they observed at home prepared them for relationships.
“Love is a choice,” said Ellen, 33. “It’s not always warm and fuzzy, rainbows and butterflies and unicorns.”
As a parent, Ellen appreciates that marriage and family require patience and forbearance. An administrative assistant in a large church, she sees relationship fail and succeed.

“If I had to express my thought about growing up in a big family, I would say I’ve learned how to be selfless,” she said. “You don’t really have an option. I think it just came naturally to put others first.

“I think Mom and Dad tend to blame themselves,” she added. “We do that as parents. ‘What could I have done differently?’ I think Mom and Dad have done a good job of just being so gracious and living that out — living a good balance of truth and grace with us. Loving us and hopefully not beating themselves up too much about whatever. Hopefully, I can handle parenthood with as much grace as they have.”

* * * * *

The children recognize in their relationship the guidance they got from home. Judith said her marriage to Donald Hendrix is based on those lessons.

Judith is one of four Krauses with a tattoo signifying birth order.“To me it’s a choice to love him every single day, to be with him, because all the lovey-dovey stuff at the beginning of a relationship is going to fade,” she said. “I’ve learned that from my parents for sure. They get under each other’s skin. They know each other very well. Even through the hard times they have stuck together. I don’t think it’s something that just happens to you. I think it’s something that you have to choose.”

Ken never doubted his decision to choose the young woman who drove the yellow Pinto while they hurled newspapers at driveways.

“My children may not know — they should know — that I love them very very dearly. But I love her more,” he said. “The top priority in my life other than God is Kathleen. Even when things are awful, she is the top priority in my life. Even when we’re crazy mad at each other she is the top priority in my life. Even when (the children) are trying to get in between us, we not only are husband and wife and lovers but we’re best friends.”