OBITUARY James Claude Kreps December 2, 1950 – January 17, 2019 On January 17, 2019, James “Jimmy” Claude Kreps, faithful follower of Jesus Christ and loving father of four children, departed this life at the age of 68 after a lengthy battle with Lewy Body Dementia. Jimmy transitioned peacefully surrounded by his children. Jimmy was born on December 2, 1950, to Joseph Peter and Mary Gasser Kreps and was raised in Cullman, Alabama.
Truly a special blessing that Jimmy passed away on the same date as his father’s birthday and on the same day in time that his father would have turned 101 years old. Jimmy was an “old soul” and was always and forever a “Cullmanite” through and through. He always loved Cullman and especially loved the people of Cullman.
He graduated from Cullman High School and attended the University of Alabama. Following the untimely death of both of his parents, Jimmy lovingly ended his college education in Tuscaloosa and returned home at the age of 20 to help his siblings and work at Office Equipment Company, Inc., the business that his father started. Jimmy was 100% devoted to his father, his family and the business until the day he died.
After his illness began and until his final days, he was mentally and verbally handling his long line of customers, backing up and unloading the truck, putting chairs and other furniture together, working on copiers & doing all he could to serve – it is who he was and why he was on earth during this life. Jimmy felt a deep calling in his heart and soul and experienced an eternal sense of comfort, honor, obligation and commitment each day that he walked through the doors of Office Equipment Company (a/k/a “the store” or “OEC”) for all of those years. Jimmy worked with and for his brothers in an earthly sense for his entire adult life.
He also worked each and every minute of every hour in an eternal sense in spirit for his father, Joseph Peter Kreps, up until just a few years ago when he was no longer able to do so because of his declining health. This makes the miracle of him passing on his father’s date of birth even more magical – truly part of the divine plan. A significant highlight of his 68 years of life was the pride, joy and love that he felt for his four children, James David Kreps (43); Joseph Claude Kreps (40); Mary Kreps Johnson (38); and Andrew Robert Kreps (33).
He loved each one of us dearly and we loved our dad and we made sure that he knew it. Jimmy was a special spiritual being in human form and was a great example of what it means to achieve the highest level of Christ-Consciousness here on earth. Jimmy achieved a level of spirituality that most humans only dream of – he lived his life devoted to being more Christlike in every sense and always strived to live in the present moment and breathed every breath each as its own.
He did not worry about tomorrow or dwell on yesterday. Until the day he died, Jimmy was always willing to do anything that was asked of him to help each of his 4 children. His door was always open and he never missed the opportunity to drop what he was doing to help in whatever way he could.
Day or night, Jimmy opened his door, his arms and his heart to show love to his children. We are so grateful to have had the opportunity over the last years of his life to live out his example of what love is by compassionately and lovingly helping him in his time of need. Many times when things were tough over the last few years and one of us would be dealing with or handling one of the hard tasks, Dad would look up at us and say “you must really love me”.
And we did. And he knew it. We loved that man more than life itself and we are so thankful to have left it all out on the field for him.
Those special moments during the thousands of man hours devoted to our Dad is what gives us comfort during this time. This peace and comfort is what we will always carry with us daily in our hearts and souls because we know beyond any doubt that he knows how much we loved him. This is not then end – it is only the beginning as we continue to live life the way he taught us and we continue to teach the same to our children.
Dad’s legacy is infinite and will live on forever. Jimmy Kreps loved his entire family. He had great love for his mom and dad and spoke of them often.
Jimmy loved his brothers and sisters and their families so very much. The best times of Jimmy’s life were spent during holidays and vacations with his children and his brothers and sisters and their families. Jimmy always counted down the days to the yearly “Kreps Christmas” gathering and each and every other opportunity to interact with, spend time with and show his love for his brothers and sisters and their children.
As his children, we cannot recall any time in our lives that we heard Jimmy Kreps say one negative word about any of his family members – that is extraordinary and just shows the love that Jimmy had for his family and the kind of person he was and the eternal legacy that he leaves. Jimmy loved his family – each and every one. Jimmy was a lover of all things Alabama football (Roll Tide) and all things music and he passed both of those loves down to his children – from Neil Diamond and Billy Joel to Elton John to the Beatles and The Muppets – Rainbow Connection, Jimmy loved his music.
Even as his illness progressed, Jimmy’s eyes would open wide and beam with joy when we played his favorite songs for him. In his last hours, we know he was comforted as his favorite songs played quietly in the background and as we held him during his final breath. As Kermit the Frog so perfectly sang, “Someday we’ll find it.
The Rainbow Connection; The lovers, the dreamers and me”. Our dad was the rainbow connection and he found it – he was a lover and a dreamer and we will always remember him for it. We are eternally grateful for those memories that we got to share with our dad.
Jimmy had a passion for coaching little league sports and did so as often as he could for his 4 children. He also served as the volunteer registrar for AYSO youth soccer league for several years and spent many hours entering in player information simply because he loved to help out in any way he could. He was a servant to Christ and to his fellow human beings.
Jimmy loved to cook. He spent many, many hours cooking all sorts of delicious dishes. Jimmy was famous for his chocolate roulage and his Christmas Eve roast that was always running just a few hours behind schedule (likely because his internal barometer was always perfection or nothing at all).
Not only did he love cooking but he also loved spending hours and hours entering recipes into his computer so that he always had easy access to the best of them (Note: we are not sure he ever used those stored recipes but rest assured, he had them all entered and catalogued with immaculate detail – just in case…). Jimmy also loved the outdoors and history and never missed the opportunity to spend hours upon hours visiting and looking over some of the most boring stuff you could ever imagine (according to his children) from Guntersville Dam to Fort Pickens to the Air and Space Museum in Pensacola or just wandering aimlessly around the state. He was an explorer of all things and had a deep thirst for knowledge and experiences – it is who he was.
Jimmy also had an obsession with all things newspapers – he read them, clipped articles, saved them, lost them, found them, catalogued them in his mind and of course, delivered newspapers for the Cullman Times for many years. Once he started delivering papers, Thanksgiving for our family was never the same. Jimmy also never missed the opportunity to save anything and everything he could.
For example, he still has canceled checks from 1980 from the Leeth National Bank because “someday he might need them…” and rest assured, we will house those things for him for generations to come because you just never know what might come up… Jimmy was known for his many quirky sayings including “JJooooooosssseeeppphhh”, “what’s the big idea? ”, “the cow doesn’t know what the date is,” “people in hell want ice water”, “I don’t know – ask your mother,” “stop that or I will give you something to cry about”, “if they can live with it then I can live without it”, “I’m not calmed up,” and “I need to crunch the numbers”. He never missed the opportunity to interject these sayings whenever he could and then grin ear to ear knowing exactly what he was doing.
It is who he was. Jimmy was a kind-hearted, gentle, loving and honest man. Jimmy was a devout Catholic for his entire life and up until his death and loved Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Cullman in every way and with every fiber of his being.
Jimmy was a hard-worker and always took pride in considering the practical, emotional and psychological toll of every person involved in each decision that he made. If there are qualities that we all should seek to emulate of Jimmy’s, they would include his love, his patience, his genuine kindness and ability to be calm even in the face of sometimes insurmountable circumstances. Jimmy was preceded in death by his parents, Joseph Peter (1/17/1918 – 11/16/1970) and Mary Gasser Kreps (1/11/1921 – 3/26/1964) and his older brother, Gerry.
He is survived by his 4 children listed above as well as his daughter-in-laws, Carrie Lewis Kreps (Joseph), Rachel McAnnally Kreps (Andrew), son-in-law Allen Johnson (Mary) and his grandchildren, Andy Kreps, Jay Kreps, Forrest Kreps, Greyson Johnson, Benjamin Kreps, Sybil Kreps, and James Kreps. He is also survived by his brothers and sisters and their families – each and every one he held a special place in his heart for and he loved them with all of his heart and all of his soul – his sisters, Barbara Kreps Everest, Carlene Kreps, Linda Kreps Pauli, Kathy Kreps, and sister-in-law, Concetta Lovoy Kreps, brothers, Rickey (Jo), and Rodney, and a host of nieces, nephews, great nieces and nephews and one great, great nephew. Jimmy and his family would like to thank all of the loving and kind souls at Aspire in Hoover, Alabama for being such an integral part of his care for the past 2 years and also Comfort Care Hospice for the amazing care and guidance over the last few weeks of his life.
We recognize that it takes special people to do what these angels do and it is with heartfelt and humble love that we say thank you from the bottom of our hearts – thank you for loving our Dad and for loving us as we navigated through uncharted territory in making our dad and “Pop Jimmy” as comfortable as possible during these difficult and trying days. The outpouring of genuine and heartfelt love, support, respect, condolences and compassion that Dad (and each of us) received in that building on the day he passed will be forever embedded on all of our hearts and in our souls. Jimmy would also like to thank Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Cullman, Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church in Homewood and Prince of Peace Catholic Church in Hoover for all of the time, love, mercy and grace provided to him over the years including hundreds and hundreds of home visits made when he was not able to travel to church during his illness and until his death.
Our Dad desires for each of us reading this now and throughout eternity to follow his lead and his example and wants everyone to remember that in the end, all we are left with is love – the only thing that is real. Death is the great teacher in life. As Steve Jobs said, “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life”.
Jimmy made the big choices and lived his life from a place of love no matter what and he was not entrenched in the fear of the world. Our father, James Claude Kreps, was and is love and he lived his life from a place of love and will always be remembered for that. Are we sad that our dad has moved on from this life?
Of course. But as dad taught us day in and day out, we recognize and witnessed that everything always works out for us in the end. Every single time.
The life and death of our dad has shown us that. The memories that we have are grand and the energy and love transferred back and forth with our dad is special. Throughout his life, Jimmy did not complain about circumstances that would have crushed most of us – he just played the next play and kept forging on.
Jimmy did not suffer for naught. The experiences and special times that we had with him and that our children (his grandchildren) got to witness and experience cannot be taught in a textbook or learned from “the google”. For it is these things in any earthly life that must be experienced in order to learn the lessons and Dad taught us all of the lessons and all of the good things.
All of our emotions must be felt and dealt with and released and we are grateful for all of those emotional times for they were all good for our dad and all good for each and every one of us. These times tried our souls but they were good for our hearts and for our souls and for the higher consciousness of this world and for that we are ever so grateful. Visitation will be on Thursday, January 24, 2019 from 6:15 p.m until 7:30 p.m. at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, 217 2nd Ave SE, Cullman, Alabama with the Rosary commencing at 7:30 pm and visitation will continue following the conclusion of the 7:30 p.m. Rosary.
A funeral mass to honor Jimmy will be held at Sacred Heart Catholic Church on Friday, January 25, 2019, at 10:00 a.m. A private interment service will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, Jimmy lovingly requests donations be made in his memory to Sacred Heart Catholic Church General Fund at 217 2nd Avenue SE, Cullman, Alabama 35055.
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