Kruse Stained Glass opens its doors to area residents

HARTINGTON - Kruse Stained Glass held an open house this weekend to feature some glass windows before they are installed into various churches in the area.

One window will be installed at Holy Trinity Church in Hartington as part of a large project.

“We had one of the church windows for Holy Trinity ready to go, and a lot of the other windows we need to be put in are pretty far away so we thought this would be a good opportunity for them to see it up close,” said Kristi Kruse. “We did this four years ago and had a lot of interest in it so we thought to do it again.”

Kristi Kruse and her husband, Kenny, began this business venture 22 years ago and the group has learned a lot along the way. It has also become a way for the family to spend time together, with each person having their own role in the process.

Kruse does a mixture of restoration along with new glass pieces, and she says the biggest thing that she has learned over the years is patience throughout the process.

“When we take the old pieces apart we have to soak them from one to three weeks. So we do other projects during that time.”

Most of the projects for Kruse Stained Glass comes from churches within a four-hour radius, but the family has worked on churches as far away as the border of South Dakota and North Dakota.

The largest project was for a church in Mitchell, South Dakota that took three full years. Currently, the Holy Trinity project fills up the entire 2019 calendar. The completed window took the family about four months, and there is still more windows in the church to do.

“I’d say four months is close because next year we will be focusing on their project all next year, and we have three more large windows and eight small windows to do for the church,” said Kruse.

The family does not stop at just staining glass, also doing all of the removal and installation of the windows.

“I always tell people that we put so many hours into our projects that we aren’t going to let anyone else touch it until it is in the church.”

Most of the work is restoration, but often a new window is built, or like with the Holy Trinity project, an old window is expanded to a larger size.

“We probably do 80% restoration of old windows and 20% of building new windows. In this aspect for this church, it is a combination of the two.”

Kruse explains that every project is a different journey, with new challenges that ensure that Kenny and Kristi never stop learning.

“We are still learning because every once in a while something will come up and we have to figure it out because there is no book to go to.”

The husband and wife are joined in the business by their children Candace, Jason, Matt, and Nick.

“Everybody has certain aspects they work on.”

Because of how long it takes to complete these projects, Kruse Stained Glass relies on planning ahead for their projects. The family fits in small projects in while big projects are in the middle of steps that take time.

“If it is a smaller project we squeeze those in all the time. A lot of times we need fillers while glass pieces are soaking or being cleaned, and it is good to have those projects to fill in the time. As a rule, if it is a whole church we put it on a calendar.”

For big projects though, like the Holy Trinity church, contracts are signed and dates are marked on the calendar, as the Holy Trinity project of three more large windows and eight smaller ones has already filled up the entire 2019 year on the Kruse’s calendar.

“Next year is fully booked. We are usually a year out at least and we feel very blessed just to have the work to do.”