Jerry Krause, former human resources director at Long Island State Veterans Home, dies at 85

Jerry Krause was 5 years old when his mother gave him the job of rushing his younger brother to cover as Allied planes fired on their train out of Holland during World War II, his family said.

His in-charge, caring qualities lasted a lifetime, from letting people in need live in his home to setting up the Long Island State Veterans Home in Stony Brook as the human resources director, family and friends said.

Those traits were his grace and sometimes his downfall, family and friends said. He helped people he hired, people who didn’t get hired, friends and family members of friends, they said. If they were down on their luck, he paid for their needs, went with them to court and drove them to drug rehabilitation appointments, they said.

“He gave away his whole life just to help people,” said Sean Lyons, who credits his drug recovery and successful landscaping business to Krause. “Towards the end, as much as I hate to say it, he almost had nothing. But he didn’t care, because the way he helped people, he was rich.”

The Manorville resident, who retired as human resources director at the Long Island State Veterans Home, died May 6 at age 85.

Krause had parlayed his organizational skills, his store of knowledge and a love for meeting people into a human resources career that spanned more than five decades, family and friends said.

He started as associate manager for human resources at Kings Park State Hospital, now known as Kings Park Psychiatric Center, but it was a steppingstone to Stony Brook University’s human resources department, which he joined in the 1970s, those who knew him said.

He was an assistant vice president for human resources at Stony Brook for one year. He also served as acting assistant vice president of personnel at the Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, records show. 

In 1991, he was essentially the first employee of the university’s Long Island State Veterans Home when he became director of human resources, playing a pivotal role in hiring to launch the facility, said Denise Muscarella, the current human resources director. He retired in 2007, she said.

“He was a book of knowledge,” recalled Muscarella, hired by Krause in the 1980s as his administrative assistant. “There’s a lot of regulations and he would just know them, right off the top of his head.  ... He was a true problem solver and he made systems better. He helped his team grow. He made you laugh. We worked hard and we played hard.”

The oldest of three boys, he was named Juergen when he was born in Voorburg, a town in southwest Holland, where his father worked at the German embassy, said his brother Michael Krause, of Northfield, Vermont. When Germans were ordered out in 1944, their father, a German reservist, was sent to the Russian front, while the rest of the family headed for the homeland in what became a “survival journey,” six weeks on a train that was under constant attack, forcing Juergen to pull Michael to whatever safety they could find among the trees and terrain, his brother recounted.

For years at night, Krause rocked himself to sleep, but the trauma lessened after the family emigrated in 1953 to Kings Park, where he attended high school. "He was a brilliant student.” his brother said.

A natural athlete, Krause organized sports games all his life, from childhood impromptu matches in the neighborhood to leagues at the university, his brother said.

He said his brother also built several houses, including his octagonal-shaped home in Rocky Point, dubbed by his nieces as the “movie star home” with its sunken living room and big screen TV that came into view with the push of a button, many years before they were common. He would have 28 flavors of ice cream in the freezer for guests, the product of a life scraping by in postwar Germany, his brother said.

After retiring, Krause continued his “avocation of helping people,” his brother said: “Many persons benefited from his generosity. He opened his home to those who really needed a helping hand in combating addiction. He saved many persons.”

A commemoration service will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday at Homestead Cemetery in Manchester, Vermont, followed by burial.