Caroline E. (Leich) Cruys

Caroline E. Cruys, 94, passed away peacefully on Friday, December 6, 2019 at Homeland Center, Harrisburg.

She was born August 17, 1925 in Brooklyn, New York to the late Julius and Pauline (Kohler) Leich, who were immigrants from Germany.  Growing up in a New York City tenement together with two brothers Frederick and Richard and her older sisters Helen and Elsie, Caroline was one of “the three girls” of the family: spirited, adventurous, hard-working and quick to laugh.  She married Navy veteran Rudolph Toepfer in Queens, with whom she had three children: Melody, wife of Ralph Lovelidge, Ronald, husband of Shirley Cruys and George Cruys.  Widowed at an early age, when Rudy was 32, with three young children, she worked in a shoe store and later as a secretary to support her young family.  In 1958, she married marine engineer Arthur R. Cruys and moved to Shellsville with her children, adapting from New York City to the life and demands of a 70-acre working farm.  In subsequent years she lived in New York City; Ava, Missouri; Miller Place, New York; and Hummelstown.  For a time, she was a purser aboard the Mississippi Queen cruise ship of the Delta Queen Steamboat Company.  In later years she was proud of having walked across the Golden Gate Bridge.  Widowed again in 2017, she is survived by her three children, four grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.

Family, friends, and others whose lives were touched by Carol are invited to a Service of Christian Burial 11:00 AM Thursday, December 19, 2019 at Shells Evangelical Lutheran Church, 287 Shells Church Road, Grantville preceded by a visitation starting at 10:00 AM to share fond memories and laugh, as she would have, at life’s odd turns and mysteries.  Interment will be in Indiantown Gap National Cemetery, Annville.

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