Helene Krüger and the Creek

It was a warm summer day in Denver, Colorado when three boys made a gruesome discovery in the waters of Little Dry Creek [9, 23].  The children had been searching the park for golf balls, but instead found the lifeless body of Mrs. Helene Müllner, who had been reported missing ten days prior [23].

Helene Krüger was born on August 11, 1882 in Brandenburg, Germany, to Johann August Krüger and his wife, Karoline (née Jänchen) [8, 15].  Brandenburg is a lush, forested land, bordered by the Oder and Elbe Rivers.  A province in East Germany, it was once at the heart of the Kingdom of Prussia [1].  Of Johann and Karoline’s four children, Helene was the only one to immigrate to the United States [8, 15].  By 1910, Helene had married an Austrian immigrant, Ferdinand Müllner, and was living in St. Louis, Missouri with an infant daughter, Estelle [10].

In 1914, Helene’s elder sister, Johanna, who had remained in Germany, was worried about the well-being of her seven children.  With encouragement from Helene, Johanna asked her children whether one of them would want to move to the United States and join their aunt.  Johanna’s eldest daughter, Charlotte, aged fifteen, ultimately won this prized opportunity [19].  Charlotte departed from Hamburg on June 17, 1914 on the S.S. Imperator, accompanied by her Aunt Helene and 5-year-old cousin, Estelle [2].

Helene (Krüger) Müllner (1882) with her niece, Charlotte Caroline (Laurisch) Turpen (1898), left, and her daughter, Estelle (Müllner) Schneider (1909), right, in approximately 1945.

Holding over 4,000 passengers, the Imperator was the largest ship in the world at the time.  The ship was luxuriously outfitted with electric elevators, a Roman bath, and a Ritz-Carlton restaurant with over 100 cooks [16, 17].  The trio arrived at Ellis Island seven days later on June 24, 1914 [2].  Charlotte lived in St. Louis with her aunt for several years before moving to Colorado for health reasons.  While Ferdinand was employed as a mechanic at a factory, and Helene worked as a housekeeper, it is thought that the Müllners lived much better lives than their relatives who stayed in war-torn Germany [5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 14, 19].

S.S. Imperator
The S.S. Imperator of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, upon which Helene sailed to the United States with her daughter and niece in June 1914.

On October 10, 1948, Helene’s dear husband Ferdinand suffered a heart attack.  He would succumb to the illness days later, on October 14.  He was 68 years old [4, 21].  Helene was devastated by the loss of her husband.  Compounding the family’s troubles, at the same time, Estelle was going through a painful divorce after being abandoned by her husband of ten years [18].  Perhaps in an effort to lift her spirits, Helene went to visit her niece in Colorado.  Charlotte had been widowed in 1935, and was raising her three young children alone [13].  On July 18, Helene visited Little Dry Creek in Englewood, only a short distance from Charlotte’s home on Clarkson Street.  It is possible that the family was enjoying a picnic with their visiting aunt in the adjacent park.  No one knows for sure what happened that day – one newspaper reports that Helene “apparently slipped and fell into the stream,” while another speculates that she was “in ill health and despondent over the death of her husband,” and perhaps her death was no accident [23, 24].  Ultimately, the Arapahoe County coroner, Ivan Joss, ruled that the death was accidental, and that there would be no autopsy [24].

Helene’s body was sent to St. Louis several days later.  She was only 66 years old when she was buried alongside her beloved Ferdinand in the Sunset Burial Park in Affton, Missouri [8, 22].  Their daughter, Estelle, who never remarried after her calamitous marriage, was buried with her parents after her death in 1975 [8].

Tombstone for Helene (Krüger) Müllner and her husband, Ferdinand Müllner, in the Sunset Burial Park in Affton, Missouri. The Americanized spelling of their names was used on the tombstone.

How Are We Related?

Family Tree Maker® Relationship Calculator for my third great aunt, Helene Krüger and myself. I have blurred out the names of living relatives, as well as my own personal information.

Sources

  1. “Brandenburg.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Oct. 2017, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg.
  2. “Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934,” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 07 Jan 2017, entry for Helen Müller, 1914; S.S. Imperator.
  3. “Little Dry Creek (Arapahoe County, Colorado).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 7 Oct. 2017, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Dry_Creek_(Arapahoe_County,_Colorado).
  4. “Missouri, Death Certificates, 1910-1962,” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 09 Jan 2017, entry for Ferdinand Muellner, 1948; St. Louis City, Missouri.
  5. “U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995,” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 09 Jan 2017, entry for Fredk Muellner, 1930; St. Louis City, Missouri.
  6. “U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995,” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 09 Jan 2017, entry for Fredk Muellner, 1933; St. Louis City, Missouri.
  7. “U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925,” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 07 Jan 2017, entry for Charlotte Laurisch, 1923; St. Louis City, Missouri.
  8. “U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current,” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 09 Jan 2017, entry for Helen Muellner, 1949; St. Louis County, Missouri.
  9. “Weather History for KDEN – July, 1949.” Weather Underground (10.226.234.25), http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KDEN/1949/7/25/DailyHistory.html?req_city=&req_state=&req_statename=&reqdb.zip=&reqdb.magic=&reqdb.wmo=.
  10. 1910 U.S. census, Saint Louis City, Missouri, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 0011, sheet 5B (stamped, 5B handwritten), household 87, family 99, Ferdinand Mueller; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 09 Jan 2017); citing NARA microfilm publication T624, roll 811.
  11. 1920 U.S. census, St. Louis (Independent City), Missouri, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 13, sheet 9B (stamped, 9B handwritten), household 146, family 223, Fred Muellner; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 09 Jan 2017); citing NARA microfilm publication T625, roll 947.
  12. 1930 U.S. census, St. Louis (Independent City), Missouri, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 0012, sheet 24B (stamped, 24B handwritten), household 272, family 518, Ferdinand Muellner; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 09 Jan 2017); citing NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 1227.
  13. 1940 U.S. census, Arapahoe County, Colorado, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 3-41, sheet 61A (stamped, 61A handwritten), household 4, Charlotte Turpin; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 23 Dec 2016); citing NARA microfilm publication T627, roll 455.
  14. 1940 U.S. census, St. Louis City, Missouri, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 96-26A, sheet 4B (stamped, 4B handwritten), household 94, Ferdinand Muellner; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 09 Jan 2017); citing NARA microfilm publication T627, roll 2181.
  15. Esther Melissa Turpen, Pedigree Chart, undated. [The original handwritten chart is in the possession of Elizabeth Rogers, Anchorage, Alaska.]
  16. Grace, Michael L. “Immigrants to America on the SS IMPERATOR.” Cruiselinehistory.com, cruiselinehistory.com/immigrants-to-america-on-the-ss-imperator/.
  17. Holland, Evangeline. “The SS Imperator, the Largest Passenger Ship in the World.” Edwardian Promenade, 21 June 2013, http://www.edwardianpromenade.com/travel/the-ss-imperator/.
  18. John H. Schreiber Divorced; Alimony of $200 a Month, St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 19 Nov 1948, p. 32, col. 1-2.
  19. Manfred Schmidt, [(manfredschmidt1@yahoo.de), “Genealogy,” Message to author, 31 December 2016 [This message describes various aspects of Laurisch/Krüger genealogy.]
  20. Manfred Schmidt, Pedigree Chart, undated. [The original handwritten chart is in the possession of Elizabeth Rogers, Anchorage, Alaska.]
  21. Muellner, Ferdinand, St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 15 October 1948, p. 39, col. 5.
  22. Muellner, Helen, St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 29 July 1949, p. 19, col. 6.
  23. Louis Woman’s Body Found in Denver Creek, St. Louis, Missouri, The St. Louis Star and Times, 28 July 1949, p. 30, col. 6.
  24. Woman Found Dead in Denver Creek Possibly a St. Louisan, St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 26 July 1949, p. 2, col. 6.

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