Emilie Kallus

Kallus Emilie L. was Aunt Millie to her niece and five nephews including me. She was the fourth child third daughter born to Elizabeth (Wiesner) Kallus and her 1890 immigrant husband Frank J. Kallus on August 6, 1900 at Ellinger, Texas and died on January 2, 1938 at La Grange.

Losing her mother at nine months an older first cousin Mary Knezek immigrated from Europe to care for her and the other three seeing them to adulthood and surviving two. Aunt Millie graduated from La Grange High School in 1918 entered Providence Sanitarium in Waco in 1921 and graduated as a registered nurse in 1924.

Mostly she was a private nurse but spent some time caring for tuberculosis patients in Colorado early in her career. Eventually she succumbed to tuberculosis when I was a senior in high school.

Her equanimity in approaching her death made the passage from "Thanatopsis" I had recently memorized as a senior English requirement so full of meaning that I have never forgotten it: "So live that when thy summons comes to join. The innumerable caravan which moves to that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death 'Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night Scourged to his dungeon but sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him and lies down to pleasant dreams." William Cullen Bryant Most importantly she bequeathed her estate to help her niece and nephews to pursue their lifes' callings.

This bequest administered by her father (Grandpa Kallus) helped most of them to pursue their educations. Her niece (my sister) became a nurse one nephew (my brother) a farmer and the others (my cousins) a science teacher an engineer a medical doctor and me a university professor. Without her short life and final thoughtfulness I may not have had this opportunity to honor her in this special way.

-John Pesek

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