The Kraus Family

We Have Everything Plenty

The family of Michael and Elizabeth Kraus and their descendants will be featured in the museum’s first exhibit for 2010.  This continues our recent trend of focusing on one colony family so as to discover their broader connections to the total colony story.
Michael, born in 1801 and Elizabeth, born in 1808 were married near Pittsburg in 1829. In the early 1840’s Michael became particularly impressed with Dr. Keil and we have evidence that suggests that the vote taken to form a Christian communal society was cast at Michael’s house.  Michael and Elizabeth brought their growing family to Bethel, Missouri, in 1845 where he contributed $2132.18 to the common treasury, the largest portion committed by any individual or family group.
While little is known of Michael’s life at Bethel, we do know that he and his wife had nine children, the last being a boy named William in 1854.  The first four children were girls, followed by two boys, two more girls and finally, William.  Mary Kraus, the eldest child, married Sebastian Giesy in 1855 and left with him for Willapa in the Peter Klein wagon Train, the migration that preceded Dr. Keil’s by one month. The people that arrived at Willapa in 1855 were greeted by the ten scouts who had selected Willapa as the site for Dr. Keil’s new “Eden”.

Dr. Keil at Willapa

The story is well known about how Dr. Keil rejected Willapa for being too wet and too isolated but that he buried his son Willie there after Willie had been carried in a lead-lined casket filled with whiskey across the Plains.
What is not so well-known is that many of the Colony’s most experienced craftsmen remained behind at Bethel waiting word from Keil to sell their property.  That word was not forthcoming as Keil found himself in desperate straights with dwindling resources. He told the Scouts and their families to finish working their Willapa claims, but moved the rest of the group to Portland where they all did odd jobs to survive.
Finally, in 1856, Keil located his own site in the mid-Willamette valley that he named after his daughter Aurora.

Tragedy and Change at Bethel

During this same time the Kraus family at Bethel suffered the death of Michael who, on November 1, 1855, fell from a horse and was kicked to death. In this time of tragedy the colony stepped up and provided support to the Kraus’s helping to keep their family intact. In 1863 George Kraus, then twenty one years old, joined nearly 240 other colonists in a trek to Aurora. The rest of his immediate family stayed behind, though Samuel Bower who was married to George’s sister Louisa, also made the trip.  George, who had learned the shoemaking trade, had much work to do at Aurora as the village hadn’t grown much since 1855.  With the infusion of this group of mostly young people Aurora’s greatest building period began.  By 1870 the colonists had constructed a hotel, two stores, their church, and quite a few homes.

Moving West to Aurora

In 1865 six of George’s siblings came west with their mother Elizabeth and settled at Aurora.  Mary was still at Willapa with Sebastian and Louisa stayed at Bethel where after the Civil War she had been rejoined by Samuel.  From that date forward the Kraus family made an impressive mark on Aurora.  George became very prominent as one of Keil’s leading trustees.  After he married Elizabeth Giesy in 1879 the couple received the property on Third and Main Street where they raised their five children.  In 1969 the family home was relocated to the museum property.
For this reason the story of the Kraus family has mostly focused on George and his family. One strong emphasis will be on his five children with much about the lives of Orletta, Georgia, Arthur, John and Laura.

Relationships Forged

This exhibit will look at their story with a more critical eye while also spending much more time on the very fascinating relationships forged by George’s siblings.  Sisters Elizabeth and Wilhelmina, for example, never married but worked long and hard in the hotel.  Wilhelmina was also a letter writer, and being closer in age to George, she expressed the family will to him in no uncertain terms.  In 1864, for example, she noted that many of the “boys” are going to the gold mines.
“If you want to do us a favor stay with Keil.” Their mother, Elizabeth, displays strength and fortitude when she instructed George to check out what was happening to his sister Mary since she had learned that Mary’s husband was treating her roughly.  Mary’s life, eerily similar in some respects to that of her sister-in-law Emma Giesy,  ended in 1874 when she died of consumption.  Her three children died also a few years later.
Sister Louisa wrote several letters over the years, lamenting family deaths, wondering if George was keeping Sunday for the Lord, and regretting that she will not see him again for even though Samuel says that she can go to Oregon on her own, she does not wish to do so.  Samuel had seen Oregon, she wrote, and had no desire to see it again.  Contacts, however, have been established with their descendants, and this information will be shared in the exhibit.
Sister Hannah married Stephen Smith, the colony’s wagon maker.  She also died young, though one son, George, lived until 1927.  George Smith was often in the paper as a child and young man showing himself to be precocious and a lucky survivor of several close calls with death.
Sister Rebecca married David Scholl and seems to have been very much a part of that large family.
Brother Henry, of whom little had been previously known, proved himself to be a man of diverse talents; an entrepreneur who made money for his family in a variety of innovative ways.  Henry’s wife, Christina Grob, was remembered by friends for her amazing singing voice.  Their son, Albert, was the recipient of a letter from Professor Christopher Wolff providing insight into the quality of the tutoring provided to selected students within the colony.
Brother William married Clara Ehlen.  The couple had six girls, four of whom married and had children of their own.  Artifacts recently donated from the Reiling family, descendants of Hannah Kraus, will be a highlight of the exhibit.
Photos, letters, memoirs and many artifacts will be featured in what promises to be one of our most extraordinary exhibits.  “I wish that I could make you understand,” Elizabeth Giesy Kraus told a reporter near the end of her life, “’ what a peaceful, harmonious and industrious group composed the Aurora Colony.”
George Kraus’ grandson George, who died last Easter perhaps said it best: “The point of interest is not so much Dr. Keil, but the choice of lifestyle made to advance Christian living.”