Ruth Traute Kulschbach passed away Friday, October 23, 2020 surrounded by her family. She succumbed to a rare form of dementia, Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), after a seven year struggle.
Ruth was born in 1936 in the city of Breslau, Germany to Gustav and Olga Prohaska. She lived on her parents’ farm in the small farming village of Linden, about 40 miles south of Breslau, the provincial capital. In 1945 she, her mother and siblings and 10 million Germans living in Germany’s eastern provinces were expelled westward when these provinces were given to Poland.
The family barely survived starvation and Russian army atrocities in the Russian occupation zone until 1947, when their father was released from a Russian P.O.W. camp. They escaped from the Russian zone crossing over into the British occupation zone, where her father began work as a translator for the British army. He spoke English since he lived in the U.S. in the 1920s, only returning to Germany to buy the family farm. He also spoke Czech, a Slavic language.
In 1950 the family settled on an uncle’s dairy farm near Boyne City, Michigan. This uncle paid their passage to the U.S. and to pay him back, they had to run the farm for three years. Ruth learned English by simply attending Boyne City High School freshman classes and absorbing it. She hand-milked cows each morning before going to school. After the family moved to Peoria, she finished her last year of high school in the Class of 1954 at Woodruff.
Ruth took secretarial classes at Brown’s Business College and worked as church secretary at Arcadia Avenue Presbyterian Church. She was President of the Peoria Alpha Beta Secretarial Sorority.
In 1958, she married Carl “Bud” Kulschbach and they were soon moved by Caterpillar to Jackson, Mississippi with their infant son, Bill, and two years later had daughter Joanie. Her husband was transferred to three more locations: Germany, Iran and Switzerland, where he traveled territories in Europe and the Middle East as a Caterpillar sales representative. Ruth was always interested in the culture of the countries she lived in and took classes in Farsi, the language of Iran and French lessons in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1967, they returned to the U.S., bought 18 acres and built a home in rural Dunlap. Ruth was a homemaker and active volunteer while her husband often traveled to Europe and the Far East.
Ruth served on many volunteer positions in Peoria and Dunlap: in Mayor Carver’s election office, on the Board of the Peoria YWCA, on the Dunlap High School Curriculum Committee, as a Girl Scout Troop Leader, as President of the Friends of Friedrichshafen, as a German teacher at the Sacred Heart Gifted School, on the Peoria Mayor’s Sister City Commission, as a translator for the Peoria mayor when the mayors of Friedrichshafen visited, and for German-speaking wives of Caterpillar dealers when in Peoria, on the Committee for displays in the German heritage tent in the Peoria Oktoberfest, and a long term member of the Methodist Hospital Service League. She was a member of P.E.O. and “As You Like It” women’s club.
Ruth’s great passions were helping her son and daughter on any and all of their projects, gourmet cooking, flower gardening and playing tennis. She was a member of the Peoria Racquet Club for many years.
Her parents and a brother, Horst Prohaska, pre-deceased her. Surviving are her husband, son William “Bill” Kulschbach of rural Dunlap and daughter, Joanie Kulschbach (and her husband, Aaron Rodzinak) of Denver, CO and a sister Eleonore Guderjan, of Peoria along with several nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews. Memorial contributions may be made to Lutheran Hillside Village in Peoria.
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