Jonathon Krause

Moms house at the Noisy Creek Ranch at first relied on a wood furnace to provide all the heat and used 10 – to 15 cords of wood in the winter. At first David, Jon and I cut the wood from moms property then it seemed to taper down to David and I cutting wood. Jon bought skidder and he would skid the trees almost to the house and David and I would cut the trees into firewood. Jon lived with mom and never moved away from home but it seemed to much for Jon to haul the wood from where we cut the wood to the house and would wait till there was 2 feet of snow to get the wood from the wood pile to the furnace room or wood storage lean to. Jon took the CAT and plowed snow to the woodpile pushing a third of the firewood into the brush and off the landing and Jon never picked it all back up. After several years of this nonsense David and I elected to stop helping Jon just to see him waste several cord of wood and wait to gather wood till there was 2 ft of snow. I mentioned that Jon never moved away from home and was rarely gainfully employed so he would sit in the house and wait for the snow. Mom started to buy logging trucks full of logs and had them piled within 75ft of the house and Jon would wait till it snowed to cut several blocks off the logs and take them in the house for heat. After several years mom decided that it was time to add a propane furnace and she did not need to depend on Jon to heat the house.

In the winter of 1981 mom ran out of wood logs stacked close to the house so Jon elected to start the D8 CAT and said there was a dead dry standing tree just south of the house. There was about 30in of snow where Jon started through the woods. There was no trail and Jon was knocking down brush and little trees to get to the tree he wanted when Jon got the D8 high centered in the snow. Jon shoveled out from underneath the Cat and tried again with no success. Jon had missed a stump under the Cat and by the time he found the stump the D8 had settled 3 inches and resting back on what was now ice. Jon tried several other machines and the onboard wench to help pull it out without success. I mentioned to Jon that I could get it out of what was now several months later and the D8 was in a mud bog and settled firmly back on the stump that Jon had cut more that a foot off. Jon Scoffed at me and would tell me here is a shovel help yourself. As Jon shoveled and dug the D8 Just sunk further.

It was now the middle of May, the ground was muddy and I for the 10th time over many months I offered to get the D8 Cat unstuck. Jon started in about “there’s the shovel.” David was there and he said to Jon if Hal can get the D8 unstuck let him try. Jon scoffed at me and said go for it. I told him to get it running and again Jon started with it would take and hour to get it started and it was a waste of time. David tells Jon that his efforts have not gotten the D8 moving and that Jon should start the cat. Jon was mad but started the D8 I grabbed the chainsaw and cut down an 8in Larch and began to cut 9ft bolts and lay them out behind the D8. Jon jeered because he had tried putting logs under the cat. I reached in the back of my pickup and pulled out 2 chains 4ft long 3/8in links and connected a chain to each end of the log and through the link in the track chain. I had Jon begin to back up and the log was dragged under the Cat the Cat began to back up and I put the remaining larch 9ft logs under the cat and backed up again till the chained on log was up front ready to catch on the “C” frame that holds the blade where we unchained. It was like placing a big paddle under the D8 Cat. The Cat was then sitting back almost 12ft and almost 18 inches above the mud bog and no longer stuck.

The D8 Cat was stuck for 5 months. Don’t scoff at the 9 year younger little brother as his simple fix could have fixed the issue many months sooner!!!

In the early 1990’s Jon Krause made a deal with Parmenter lumber in Kalispell who had recently purchased 120 acres adjacent to mom property that if they could use access across mom’s property they would gravel mom’s road and sell the property to Jon when they were were finished for $40k. When Parmenter was finished they left the road almost unpassable for mom to drive as they did not put on any gravel, they took everything and left the land looking almost clear cut but they did sell the land to Jon for $40k.

That was the the beginning of Jon’s issues as the Pacific yew bark that Jon was harvesting from mom’s property and selling to Bristol Meyers which was used to create Taxol, a powerful anti-cancer drug was being fazed out and Taxol was being synthesized. Consequently Jon’s cash flow stopped.

What we did not know was that Jon paid $40k for the land out of his business account and the $40k was employee withholdings such as FICA, Federal and state unemployment, State tax and workman’s Comp. Jon was broke and no way to repay his debts. Government agencies are not tolerant about not getting paid but Jon had no assets for them to financially attach all they had was Jon saying he would repay them the best he could. That did not set well and they found that Mom had placed Jon’s name on her savings account and of course they helped themselves to $40k.

After Mothers death our oldest brother David went through all of mom records and created a finical trail of her expenses to see why there was almost no money when she died. What David found was that the $40k had never been repaid, there was a monthly payment for a John Deere tractor, a quarterly payment for an excavator payment and a $2200 a month payment to Lutheran Insurance for health insurance. (Found that the Lutheran Insurance was to be a 2 year gap insurance 1977 till Medicare started and that was 35 years when cancelled.)(Found 2 storage units $60/m each for 10 years or $14,000 contents were then sold at auction for $725

In 2004 Jon traded with Greg Good the 120 Acres on Krause Basin for 155 acres on  Coon Hollow Road in Kila. Mother never got her $40k. She did keep the tractor. Jon eventually sold the excavator after moms death and kept the money. Jon was allowed to keep moms home in Kalispell as that was a Medicaid maintenance loophole. Mother died (2017) destitute as a ward of the state. Moms will was that Jon gets the house and the rest was to be spit between the kids. Jon got the house and there was nothing for the other three children. Jon died (2018) in an Alzheimer Beehive ward and his assets were named in a will to Ryan Krause.

Nothing seems to last forever including family businesses.

Harry Krause my father died in 1977

The sawmill was sold in 1975 and repossessed in 1978

An Auction was held in 1974

Jonathon Krause my brother died in 2018

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