Multiple generations of one family represented at the Lincoln Hall project.

The Klaus family has a long history in Lincoln Hall. Carrie Klaus (left), with her father, Terry Ridgely Klaus, and her mother, Mary Margaret Klaus, pose near the bust of Lincoln during Homecoming 2012 at the Lincoln Hall Open House.
The Klaus family has a long history in Lincoln Hall. Carrie Klaus (left), with her father, Terry Ridgely Klaus, and her mother, Mary Margaret Klaus, pose near the bust of Lincoln during Homecoming 2012 at the Lincoln Hall Open House.

The family of Carrie Klaus has been seen around Lincoln Hall for almost as long as the building has existed.

Appropriately, her family is among the most frequently featured on memorial pavers in the courtyard of the restored Lincoln Hall. Carrie Klaus is just the most recent graduate from her family from the University of Illinois, where she received her master’s in French in 1996 and her PhD in French in 2000.

The family connection began with Mary Elizabeth Ridgely (AB ’31, general curriculum), Carrie’s grandmother who also studied French at the University of Illinois. It was Ridgely who first broke the mold of this central Illinois family and expanded their horizons beyond the small town of Eureka, where she had graduated the valedictorian of her 1927 high school class.

Carrie, who graduated as valedictorian from the same high school 62 years after her grandmother, was inspired by Ridgely, who not only lived until Carrie was almost 20, but whose courage to leave home and attend the U of I allowed her to return to Eureka with much greater wisdom and knowledge.

Just as Carrie was inspired by her grandmother’s interest in French literature, Ridgely (who married Caesar Klaus, Jr.) also inspired her own two sons, Caesar III and Terry Klaus (Carrie’s father), both of whom graduated from U of I.

Carrie’s father, who received his bachelor’s degree in music education, was involved in the Men’s Glee Club, which allowed him to sing in stunning and historic locations across Europe. In particular, he even got the chance to spend a few days in Berlin just before the Wall was closed between the eastern and western parts of the city.

This musical experience is possibly what sparked Carrie to become involved with music at U of I. She became a member of a German baroque choir, which held some of its concerts in Lincoln Hall, possibly in some of the same spaces that her father, Terry, played or practiced as a student.

Carrie Klaus and her father, both Illinois alumni, toured the Lincoln Hall courtyard where five of their family members are honored through memorials.
Carrie Klaus and her father, both Illinois alumni, toured the Lincoln Hall courtyard where five of their family members are honored through memorials.

Many of Carrie’s memories of U of I specifically include Lincoln Hall, which is why the recent renovation project carries such significance for her. Now that she is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Modern Languages at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., she reminisces about her graduate studies where she continued her academic career.

Carrie, who instructed her first French undergraduate course as a teaching assistant in Lincoln Hall, relishes the possibility that she might have taught French in the same room where her grandmother sat down for one of her own classes in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Having ordered a memorial brick for her father and grandmother, she inspired her own parents to get involved and make donations in the name of several other family members who also graduated from the U of I.

In all, five family members are honored. They include Carrie Faye Klaus, Mary Elizabeth Ridgely, Terry Ridgely Klaus, Caesar Klaus III, and Jessie McNeill Smith (Carrie’s maternal grandfather).

“[Lincoln Hall is] such a worthwhile project, it’s a beautiful building, and it’s in honor of family members who are in some cases no longer living,” Carrie says. “And because I’m really committed to higher education as a profession, and as a calling, it’s something I feel really good about too.”

Courtyard pavers in Lincoln Hall can be purchased online. All proceeds go to the Lincoln Hall Fund for Scholarships. For more info, go to: http://www.lincolnhall.illinois.edu/giving.

Joanna Chromik, editorial intern