Handmade rosaries, love, have traveled the globe

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Rosary making may not seem that uncommon in the Catholic community. But imagine someone making more than 10,000 of them, with the majority going to Catholic missions worldwide?
    That’s the achievement of Kim Kruebbe of Metairie.
  

 Since 1989, Kruebbe, a 48-year-old adult who had attended St. Michael’s Special School, has made rosaries that have gone all over the world, including to soldiers in Afghanistan.
     In the beginning, the rosaries were given to Father Mike Roberson, pastor at  the now-closed St. Brigid Parish, where Kruebbe’s family members were parishioners. He took them on his annual mission trips to Nicaragua. Father Roberson is now pastor at Holy Name of Mary.
    “She would make hundreds for me when I would go down to Nicaragua to work with the Salesian priests,” Father Roberson said. “It was great. I would give them to the kids there who had nothing, and it was like they were getting cell phones today. It was nice gesture. She made them with love.”
    Kruebbe said it was Theresa Benton, a fellow St. Brigid parishioner, who taught her to make rosaries.
    “I was making rosaries and asked if anyone at St. Brigid Church wanted to learn to make rosaries that I would help them along the way,” Benton said. “Kim and another lady were takers. I taught Kim how to make bead rosaries, and the rest is history. She’s been going ever since.”
    Benton said when Kruebbe began supplying Father Mike for the missions, she and her husband, Joe, decided to buy all the beads.
    “I said if she has the enthusiasm to make them, I will supply her with the beads,” Theresa Benton said. “I’d still be promoting the rosary but not making them.”
    

Each time Kruebbe reaches milestones – mostly for every 1,000 rosaries made – the Bentons take her to dinner at the restaurant of her choice.
    “For us, it is the acknowledgment of the accomplishment of making 1,00 rosary beads,” Benton said.
    Kruebbe grins when she says she’s been treated to Copeland’s and Outback Steakhouse.
    “I’m going big,” Kruebbe said. “All that work, why not?”
How she makes them
    To make the rosaries, Kruebbe cuts a special cord 57 inches long. She then strings the beads one at a time – 59 in all – and puts spacers in between the decades. She said used to laboriously tie knots in between the decades with umbrella rods and then began using a plastic tool her father, Wayne Kruebbe, bought her. But, she said putting in the spacers is easier.
    

She’s been doing it so long, that she strings the beads with ease and speed.
    “I’m doing it as a relaxation-type thing and knowing they are going to the missions,” Kruebbe said.
    She doesn’t sell the rosaries – she only gives them away – and objected when she learned that someone had tried to sell them for a cause.
    “Theresa told us that rosaries made with the beads I use are not to be sold,” Kim Kruebbe said.
Where rosaries go
    These days, Kruebbe makes rosaries for all seasons and holidays: St. Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Easter, Mardi Gras, black and gold for the New Orleans Saints and blue and white during the month of May for Mary. At the start of summer in June, she switches to yellow and white; and in July, it’s red, white and blue.
    “It’s all color-coordinated with whatever’s going on,” Benton said. I think that’s what keeps her interest fresh in making rosaries.”
    “I love Christmas with the red and green beads,” Kruebbe said. “I also like to do Mardi Gras and create different colors.”
    Her hairstylist Kim Tumminello sends Kruebbe’s rosaries on medical mission trips with the New Orleans Medical Mission Services Inc.
    Kruebbe has made the majority of the rosaries herself, but when she was a student at St. Michael Special School from 1972-94 she taught a few of her friends how to make them, and they would help her make them for Father Mike.
    “We’d be in an assembly line,” she said.
    Over the years, she’s taught several people how to make the rosaries, including family friend Carolyn Haar.
    “She has a heart that is so beautiful,” Haar said about Kruebbe. Haar’s sister, Julie McCann bowls on the special bowling team with Kruebbe. “Just being with her I have been so very touched. I thought it was a witness to what one person can do.”
    Haar was talking with Kruebbe recently as she was making a rosary and told her, “The Blessed Mother is very happy because it might encourage others to do what they can do.” She added, “It’s a beautiful witness.”
    On March 13, Kruebbe will join Dominican Sister of Peace Suzanne Brauer, archdiocesan mission educator, at a Lenten mission assembly at St. Francis Xavier School and possibly demonstrate to students how to make a rosary.
    Kruebbe is extremely active in many clubs. She is a member of the Special Bowlers, the Special Bowlers Carnival Club and was its Carnival queen in 2010 and is involved in We Care and also was its queen. She exercises at Elmwood Fitness Center.
    How long will she keep making rosaries?
    “I don’t know how much longer,” Kruebbe said. “As long as I have an outlet, I will make some for people. If I don’t, I will just slow down.”