Stuart Mayor Krueger dies of cancer

The 72-year-old Stuart native and member of a pioneering family had been battling lung cancer

By ANA X. CERON
[email protected]
January 4, 2006

STUART — He was a flower farmer turned businessman, a teenage pilot and professional water-skier, and a politician who spoke his mind;

Stuart Mayor Karl John Krueger Jr. died Monday after battling lung cancer. He was 72.

A Stuart native, Krueger was remembered Tuesday as someone who gave it to you straight, whether lecturing a long-winded commission speaker or recounting childhood memories.

Krueger's story began in Berlin. His grandfather, Albert Rudolph Krueger, emigrated from there to the United States in the late 1800s. He moved to Martin County to help a friend harvest pineapples, but it wasn't long before he started farming his own land.

Albert's son, Karl John Sr., also became a farmer, providing his son, Karl John Jr., with what friends remember as an idyllic childhood in a rural town.

Not far from the river, Karl John Jr. lived in St. Lucie Estates off Ocean Boulevard, where he would play with the Crary brothers and the Hudson boys.

The boys were destined to become future community leaders, though back then they just wanted to be soldiers and pilots.

Attorney Evans Crary Jr. remembers days spent playing at Bert's Field, a nearby airstrip owned by Krueger's Uncle Albert. The neighborhood boys would climb into a grounded one-engine plane where they would soar wherever their minds would take them.

"We'd just dream about flying all over the world," Crary said.

Krueger got to live out those dreams, becoming a pilot at 13.

He also reveled in the water.

After graduating from Stuart High School, Krueger went off to Lakeland to pursue a business administration degree at Florida Southern College. Between classes, he worked as a water skier at Cypress Gardens in Central Florida.

During one of the tourist seasons, Krueger met fellow skier Nancie Gallarneau, his future companion. He'd often ask her out, but Gallarneau would only turn him down

"He was cute, athletic and mild-mannered," recalled Gallarneau. "But I didn't date guys I worked with.”

Eventually, the two went their separate ways, with Krueger headed back to the skies.

After graduating from Florida Southern in 1955, Krueger joined the 101st Airborne Division and was later based in New York.

He returned to Stuart in the late 1950s and spent 22 years running Karl J. Krueger & Sons, a chrysanthemum farm along what is now Monterey Road.

"It was a big money crop in those days, in the '60s," remembered Dale Hudson, former First National Bank president.

The local bank also got involved, producing an ad to run in the local movie theater. In it, Hudson and Krueger walked the farmer's flower fields, a picturesque scene projecting the bank's support for the industry.

"It was fun," Hudson remembered. "We were movie stars, you might say."

As the local flower industry lost business to South American growers, Krueger harvested his fields in other ways: He began developing.

Starting from the late 1970s, Krueger built much of the area around Monterey and East Ocean boulevards, including what is now the county's administrative building and Walgreen's.

"He had the property and he wanted to make it economically viable," Crary said.

Krueger would draw on that keen business sense to campaign for a spot on the Stuart Commission in 1996.

"My business expertise speaks for itself," he said as a first-time candidate. "I feel I have the expertise that the city needs."

He served as city mayor three full terms, never shy to tell city staff and developers they were talking too much.

"He didn't have a lot of patience for double talk or for people repeating themselves," said Gallarneau, who, after moving in with him in 2002, would sit in on commission meetings to observe her companion.

Krueger

photo provided by Krueger family

Karl Krueger Jr., second from the right, in 1960 at the opening of Krueger's Florist and Gifts, a flower shop the young businessman opened for his mother, Radie Belle Bruner Krueger (in the white dress).

Krueger wanted even his constituents to be succinct. After Wal-Mart filed plans to build a new SuperCenter, residents were split on whether the city should approve the project.

Krueger launched a straw poll, asking residents to call or e-mail him their votes

"I'm looking for a simple yes or no. No dissertations," he said back in January 2003.

But his heart was in the right place, friends say.

"He was totally in love with the city of Stuart," Gallarneau said. "And what he felt was right for Stuart was very important to him."

As the city grew, Krueger was nostalgic about the past, Gallarneau said. She would remind him that things had to change, that life couldn't stand still.

He accepted that, she said, but one thing always remained constant: Krueger loved the St. Lucie River.

In fact, his family made sure the river remained near to him during his last days at home.

As Frank Sinatra songs played in the background, the sliding glass door overlooking the water was left open

"Between Sinatra songs he could hear the river, the waves washing up on the shore," said his daughter Anne Stimmell.

"He was peaceful."

Krueger is survived by his companion, Nancie Gallarneau; his three children; three great-grandchildren; his brother Albert Krueger; and his first wife, Geraldine Krueger.

A viewing is scheduled for Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m. at Forest Hills Memorial Park, 2001 S.W. Murphy Road, Palm City.

Funeral services will be held Friday at 11 a.m. at Forest Hills, followed by burial at Fern Hill Memorial Gardens, 1501 Kanner Highway, Stuart.

Karl John Krueger Jr.

1933: Born on March 25

1955: Graduated from Florida Southern College.

1955-1957: Served in U.S. Army.

1960: Opened his mother's flower shop, Krueger's Florist and Gifts.

1957-1979: Owned Karl J. Krueger & Sons, a chrysanthemum farm employing 150 along what is now Monterey Road.

1996: Won a seat on the Stuart Commission.

2005: Appointed Stuart Mayor Dec. 12.