Karl Horck

Karl Vander Horck, 92, died Sunday, August 3, 2014 at Saint Mary's Medical Center in Duluth, Minnesota.

Karl was a teacher, professor, and World War II veteran. He loved the outdoors, walking, canoeing, and camping. He had a quick intellect and was a great storyteller.

Born June 7, 1922 in Minneapolis, MN to Karl Vander Horck and Ruth Elizabeth Hart Vander Horck. He attended public and parochial school in Minneapolis and Taft, CA, graduating in 1940 from St. John's Preparatory School in Collegeville, MN. After service in World War II he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy, with a minor in history, from St. John's University, Collegeville, MN in 1948; a Masters of Art degree in 1955 and a Ph.D. in educational administration in 1962 from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Karl married Katherine "Kay" Sauser on August 28, 1948 in Pine City, MN. Together they raised six children: Katie, John, Ruth, Mark, Paul, and Lucy. They were blessed with wonderful grandchildren.

Karl began his teaching career where he taught science, mathematics, and history in the public schools of Holdingford, Ely, and Roseville, MN. He became the Director of Graduate Studies in Educational Administration at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN from 1963 to 1966. Karl retired from the University of Minnesota, Duluth in 1983 as the Director of Graduate Studies in Educational Administration. He served 24 years at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and Duluth.

Karl was a long time consultant to the Academy for Educational Development, Washington, D.C., the Minnesota Educational Council branch of the Education Commission of the States, the Minnesota School Administrators Professional Standards and Licensing Committee, as well as the Midwest Council for Educational Administration.

He was the principal author of 30 research studies of Minnesota school districts' long-range planning., the author of the Pine Valley principal-superintendent simulation instructional materials, and the author of the Guidebook to School Law.

Karl was a combat veteran of World War II in the European Theater, serving in five of the six ETO campaigns, including the Battle of the Bulge. Although trained as a combat engineer soldier, with a specialty in water purification, he served overseas with the 8th Field Artillery Observation Battalion of the 19th Corps and the First and Ninth Armies, from Normandy to east of the Elbe River, where the troops met the Soviet troops at Zerbtz in eastern Germany.

Karl was a long-time member of the National, Lake Superior, and Minneapolis-St. Paul chapters of Veterans for Peace. He was also a member of Pax Christi, Phi Delta Kappa, the DFL Party, the NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union and University for Seniors.

In his younger years Karl enjoyed camping and canoeing with his boys, and cross country skiing with Kay. He camped in the BWCAW long before it was fashionable. He canoed and boated the Mississippi River from Lake Itasca to the Iowa border. He and Kay traveled the United States seeing all 50 states, visiting friends and relatives.

Karl wrote volumes about his family history. He was proud of his Irish heritage. He was the grandson of Minneapolis police captain and Chief of Police, John T. Hart, and Minneapolis physician Max Posa Vander Horck, and pianist Emma Curtis Robb.

Karl was preceded in death by his father (1965) and mother (1932), his second mother Florence Scheid Seibel Vander Horck (1979), brother George J. Seibel, and sister Margaret Seibel Cates.

He is survived by wife Kay Vander Horck, sister Jane Aigner, Blaine, MN, children: Katie( Bob) Kuettel, Duluth, MN; John (Barb) Vander Horck, Mora, MN; Ruth (Phil Glende) Vander Horck, Madison, WI; Mark Vander Horck (Carol Nyrhinen),
Pine City, MN; Paul Vander Horck, Duluth, MN; and Lucy (Bryan) Morgan, Loveland, CO; grandchildren Ann, Kristin, Christopher, Abbie, Steven, Beth, Kate, Jessica, Amelia, Becky, Matt, and Cassie.

Memorials are preferred to St. John's Preparatory School, PO Box 4000, 2280 Watertower Road, Collegeville, MN 56321-4000 or Veterans For Peace, Duluth Chapter 80, PO Box 16, Duluth, MN 55801.

VISITATION: 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 7, 2014, at the Dougherty Funeral Home, 600 E. 2nd St., Duluth, MN. Visitation will resume at 11 a.m. prior to the Noon, Mass of the Resurrection, Friday, August 8, 2014 at the Cathedral of Our Lady, 2900 E. Fourth St., Duluth, MN. BURIAL: Lakewood Cemetery, 3600 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis, MN at 1 p.m., Saturday, August 9, 2014. Military Honors will be accorded by the Duluth Honor Guard.

Arrangements by Dougherty Funeral Home, 600 E. 2nd St., Duluth, (218) 727-3555.