Clifford Kruse 1919-1950

KRUSE, TOGELSTION

Posted By: S. Ferrall - IAGenWeb volunteer
Date: 2/12/2010 at 19:07:52

Although this isn't an obituary per say, I've posted this collection of news articles about Clifford Kruse & his death with the hope they will be of use to a researcher. I have no further information.
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The La Crosse Tribune lost one of its ace sports correspondents last week when Clifford Kruse, news editor of the Waukon Newspapers, resigned his position and planned to leave for the South Sea islands. Kruse will enter a trading business at Papeeti and Tahiti in the French Society islands. He sails from New Orleans Monday on the S.S. Pioneer Geui. The area in the South Pacific is not unfamiliar to Kruse, since he was commissioned a captain and served in the U.S. marine corps during the war, Kruse also served as a Flying Tiger pilot in Asia during the war.
~La Crosse Tribune, Aug 28, 1949
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Clifford Kruse, former news editor of the Waukon Newspapers, Waukon, Ia., and La Crosse Tribune sports correspondent, has landed at Papeete in the South Pacific where he will be connected with a trading concern. Kruse left New Orleans about Aug. 20 and arrived a month later at his destination. He sailed on the S.S. Pioneer Gem and will be working on most of the Society Islands, including Ia Ora Na Tamaril, Nordhoff and Hall.
~La Crosse Tribune, Oct 30, 1949
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Clifford Kruse, adventurous 30-year-old Dubuque, Ia. freelance writer, died August 6 in the Australian Tobriand Islands after trying to escape a polio outbreak. Kruse died after cabling a Sydney friend that he had been put ashore at the island of Kiriwina from a government schooner against his will by an Australian medical officer. Pacific Islands Monthy published a posthumous account about Kruse's visit to Rapa.
~Oelwein Daily Register, October 5, 1950
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30-year old Clifford Kruse of Dubuque, Iowa, visited Rapa early this year on the first commercial vessel to drop anchor there in two years. Though the young American contracted, and died of, polio in the Trobriand Islands soon afterwards. A mountainous island about 20 miles in circumference, Rapa is situated about 1,000 miles southeast of Tahiti in the remote French Australs.
~extracted from a longer article published posthumously in the Pacific Islands Monthly [September or October] 1950

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Notes: Clifford Kruse, born in November 1919, was the son of Mr. Leonard & Helen (nee Togelstion) Kruse of Dubuque. He served as a Captain in the Marine Corps and as a pilot for Maj. General Kellar Rockey. After the war he flew the Pacific with a chartered airline that serviced General MacArthur's command in Japan.
~1920 US census, 1925 Iowa State census & Oelwein Daily Register 10/5/1950