Family remembers Wichita man killed in hit-and-run accident in Country Acres
Kurt Krueger was an artist at heart and had a deep appreciation for his home state of Kansas, his family says.
As the pandemic eased, he was looking forward to creating a new future for himself. Then, overnight on May 1, a car struck and killed him as he walked in the 7900 block of Cottontail, police said.
Krueger, 49, was born in Wichita. His family lived in the Country Acres neighborhood in northwest Wichita. He had cared for his parents in the home where he and his five older sisters grew up, his cousin Maureen Dime told The Eagle in a phone call.
The two were close in age, and Dime was often at the Krueger residence when they were growing up.
“I remember in the 70s we would ride our Sting-ray bicycles all over the neighborhood,” she said.
Krueger’s family members say he had a passion for photography and sculpting. He was a handyman who knew how to take things apart and put them back together.
“He could fix a classic car because his father, my uncle Russ Krueger, had a passion for old cars, Packards and Barracudas,” Dime said.
Krueger was his parents’ main caregiver for about eight years, his sister, Gretchen Mitchell says. His father, Russell Krueger, died of cancer in 2016. His mother, Ruth Krueger, had dementia and died in 2019 before the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Mitchell said she helped take care of their parents, but that Kurt “did all the heavy lifting.”
“Through their health challenges, Kurt’s ability to learn how to construct and solve an issue really applied to their health conditions. What I mean by that is that Kurt was an avid researcher. ... He truly helped even the doctors advance their overall diagnosis when uncle Russ had cancer,” Dime said.
After his mother died, Kurt was looking forward to taking a different direction in his life, his sister, Mary Krueger, said.
“Boom, the pandemic hits ... and his life is on hold for two years. ... Things were getting back to normal and he was doing a lot of projects for different clients, doing construction, handyman and plumbing,” she said of her brother.
“He had never been selfish or focused on himself. Once COVID started to lift and vaccinations became prevalent, he was looking forward to a new future to explore,” Dime said.
Mary Krueger said the sisters plan to spread Krueger’s ashes in Majorca, an island in Spain that she said held a special place in his heart.
“After high school, Kurt had went on a European adventure. ... He took all sorts of pictures and went all over Europe. Andres (Mary’s husband) and I had met him in Spain after he went for this archaeological dig in Majorca in this magical village called Deia.
“... Kurt always said that Deia was heaven on earth, so ultimately, our plan is to take a little bit of his ashes and go scatter them in that beautiful cove of Deia, because it was his heaven on earth.”
Kurt is survived by his sisters: Karen Hague, Kathy Anderson, Mary Krueger, Gretchen Mitchell and Kristina Page.
This story was originally published May 20, 2022 at 12:00 AM.