Karen Knickrehm

Karen Margarethe Julie Knickrehm, nee Bischoff, was born in Hamburg, Germany on the 20th of July 1939, and passed away in Houston suddenly on Thursday, the 10th of August 2023, due to an apparent heat stroke in the community pool area close to her home.

Karen was born right at the beginning of World War II to her parents Erika and Heinrich Bischoff. Her father was active in the German Merchant Shipping industry, eventually as a part-owner of dry-cargo vessels working from Hamburg. While he was sent to the Eastern front as a soldier during the war, he sent his wife and young daughter to his small hometown of Schleswig, in Northern Germany. Karen then spent her childhood years in Schleswig, even after the war and attended a Danish school in the area. After completing her primary education, her mother and two other siblings, born in 1945 and 1946 respectively, eventually moved back to Hamburg, where Karen completed her formal education including a stint at the Foreign Language School in Bournemouth, England in 1960 to further her English language skills. By this point, she had also started working for her father’s shipping company.

She met her future husband, Hans Knickrehm, at a birthday party to which both he and Karen were invited by her father’s partner’s son and began their courtship soon after. Hans, who had completed both his ship broker apprenticeship/college education as well as his mandatory German military service in 1961, accepted an offer to further his experience in the shipping business in Houston, Texas, arriving in June 1962. Karen and Hans had gotten engaged earlier that year in Amsterdam and planned to get married after his two-year contract had expired. However, fate took another path as Hans enjoyed his work in the shipping industry here in Houston later asking Karen to follow him here instead.

Karen and Hans got married on the 4th of May 1963, immediately upon her arrival onboard m/v ‘BELGIEN” in Houston. This had been to live up to a commitment Hans had made to Karen’s father. Karen began working as an accountant here while Hans continued his work for the shipping agency, later extending his contract by three years. As Karen enjoyed the warm climate here Hans decided to leave the agency, he had then worked with for five years to open his own shipping agency with his partners in Antwerp, Belgium. They later bought their first house in 1968 just outside the then Houston City Limits. In the Spring of 1969, they welcomed their first daughter, Anne.

Shortly after, they added a swimming pool, which Karen insisted on as she liked spending time in and out of the water by then. Karen took time off to raise their young daughter while Hans built up his business, always steadfastly supported by Karen, who had been raised in this environment.

From 1972 through 1975, Hans had opened a branch office in Chicago and the family spent substantial time there as well as travelled around the Great Lakes region, including a road trip circling Lake Michigan Superior and Huron. After appointing a successor for the branch in Chicago, the family returned to Houston. However, this lasted only for a short time, as Hans was asked by his partners to transfer to their headquarters in Antwerp in 1975. Karen visited him for extended periods but being pregnant with her 2nd daughter, she returned home in good time prior to her birth in July of 1976, when Christine was born. Just prior, Karen had convinced her husband not to move to Monte Carlo on behalf of the company, but instead to return to Houston. Hans agreed, and they had to start anew here to provide the financial basis for raising the family. Hans founded a new shipping agency company, a travel agency as well as a forwarding company before he joined a former colleague in Antwerp to open another shipping agency in 1980 while also becoming a partner in their successful ship operating company.

Throughout these many years, Karen was always the backbone of her husband’s endeavors, allowing him to spend time to develop his business and joined him on several trips to Europe, while always making sure their daughters were properly educated, visiting their grandparents in Germany each summer to improve their German language skills. While helping her husband in his business part-time, she was fortunate to have the time to take care of the growing daughters. In 1984 the family moved into their 2nd beautiful home in the Memorial area, again with a wonderful pool, and lived there for 32 years until Harvey caused significant damage. During these years, Karen also enjoyed extensive travelling and cruising all over the world with her husband.

After selling their rebuilt home in West Houston in 2017, Karen found a new home in the Uptown area, in a gated community with a nice community pool. She would visit that pool in the summer regularly, even continuing during the current hot weather. Unfortunately, last Thursday the high temperature was too much for her heart and she quietly left this earth leaving behind her husband, daughters, and their families along with her beloved grandchildren and many others.

Karen and Hans celebrated their Diamond Wedding Anniversary on the 4th of May 2023, with family and friends as well as her 84th birthday on the 20th of July 2023. She and her husband are members of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church on Westheimer, Lakewood Yacht Club, Seabrook, Texas (since 1976), Museum of Fine Arts, as well supporters of the Alley Theater and other many charitable organizations. Ever since the 1980’s Karen regularly met her surviving peers from the old International Club at Stratford High School.

She is preceded in death by her parents, Heinrich Bischoff and Erika Bischoff; as well as granddaughters, Lily Caroline and Sophie Marie Purvis. Karen is survived by her devoted husband of over 60 years, Hans Knickrehm; and her loving children, Anne Knickrehm Perry, her husband Kenneth D. Perry and their son Nicholas D. Perry, Christine Knickrehm Purvis, her husband Robert J. Purvis and their daughter, Julianna Birgitt Purvis. She is also survived by her brother, Claus Bischoff and his wife Maren, as well as their daughter, Julia Bechler and her spouse and children. Furthermore, her sister Birgitt Anne Marie Adenacker and her husband Gerhard Peter Adenacker.

A private memorial service was held on Friday, the 18th of August.

In lieu of customary remembrances, the family respectfully requests that memorial contributions in Karen’s memory be directed to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts at https://www.mfah.org/give/give-mfah; to Susan’s Rally, 3820 San Jacinto Street, Houston, TX 77004; or to the Alley Theatre at https://www.alleytheatre.org.

Karen was a kind-hearted and caring mother and grandmother and would do anything for her family. Family unity was always her priority with many family dinners and outings taking place regularly at her home as she was most happy with family and friends around her. She will be sorely missed by her family. They will always keep her close to their heart through her favorite saying “love you forever.”