Benet J.J. Kutz

Benet J.J. Kutz was taken by God into eternity on the morning of October 7, 2017, just short of his 81st birthday, October 18, 1936. He had received the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick the evening before in the ICU of the Durham VA hospital with his brother, Fr. Larry, at his side. Ben was born in Milwaukee and raised in the town of Franklin. He, like many children growing up in farm country, went to a one room country school for grades one to eight. Graduating from Greendale High in 1954, he was already into electronics and motorcycles. He enrolled in MSOE in Milwaukee, after which he joined the US Air Force in 1956 where he became an expert in radar and was shipped off to the Pacific Ocean for the first tests of the hydrogen bomb. Like many others he was overexposed to the unexpected radiation of those first explosions. His service to our country then took him to Germany where during the decade of the 60s, as a member of Air Force intelligence, he carried out both covert and overt activities in Berlin and East Germany. There he met Monika Oslislok and they married in 1965. They moved to the United States after his retirement in 1970 to live in Arizona. Monika survives him. God gave them two sons, Andre and Bjorn. After his retirement from the Air Force as a Technical sergeant (TSgt), he worked in electronics and the rising field of computers. He was fluent in many languages including Mandarin. He traveled to Taiwan and mainland China, learning about the Chinese culture. From his earliest years and increasingly as time went on, he sought to develop techniques of education that embraced most of the elements of life in an integrated way. He had a great sensitivity for native cultures and worked to preserve their environs in basic ways while being integrated into the modern world of technology and the intermingling of many cultures. His interests in this regard took him to the far reaches of Canada, the Northwest Territory first and then Edmonton, Canada. He stayed in Canada from 1985 through 2013 when, fully retired, he moved to Durham, NC, to be close to his son, Bjorn and his wife Teri, and his two granddaughters Olivia and Abigail. While officially retired, he remained fully engaged in following and writing about matters of education and the flow of world events. Ben is the first born son and child of the late Julius and Doris Kutz. He is survived by four of his five siblings. The youngest sibling, Theresa (or Tracy) died in 2007. He is survived by Rosalie Kutz, Rev. Lawrence Kutz, Maria (Ron) Sowinski, Catherine (John) Lelinski, and sons, Andre (Katyla) Kutz, Bjorn (Teri) Kutz and granddaughters Olivia and Abigail. He is also survived by many nieces, nephews, grandnieces, grandnephews, other family and friends. The Mass of Catholic Burial was celebrated at St. Mary's Catholic Church, Kansasville, WI, on October 30, 2017 with a full military funeral at Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery, Union Grove, WI. There was also a military memorial service in the Durham VA Hospital chapel.

Benet J.J. Kutz

October 18, 1936 - October 7, 2017