Russell W. Kruse; founded collector car auction firm
AUBURN, Ind. -- Russell W. Kruse, the founder of Kruse International, which has grown into one of the world's leading collector car auction firms, died Friday at Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne. He was 85 and suffered a stroke, the funeral director said.
In 1952, Mr. Kruse established an Auburn real estate and auction business with his father-in-law, Lester Boger.
During the past 55 years, it has grown into a premier collector car auction company, selling about 13,000 cars each year at events that draw crowds eager to see and bid on classic cars and everyday vehicles owned by celebrities.
Those have included a 1975 Ford Escort GL that Pope John Paul II used when he was a cardinal in Poland and the 1962 Ford ambulance that carried a mortally wounded Lee Harvey Oswald after he was shot by Jack Ruby following the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas.
For decades, Mr. Kruse, who had a good singing voice, would croon "Back Home Again in Indiana" before every auction at the auction house in Auburn, about 20 miles north of Fort Wayne.
Mr. Kruse had slowed down in recent years after a stroke eight years ago, but he still enjoyed hunting and fishing. He went on a Canadian fishing trip last summer and had his bags packed for the trip the December before, his son joked.
Despite an aversion to cleaning fish, Mr. Kruse was an avid outdoorsman, said Auburn lawyer Donald Stuckey. 