By Lauren FitzPatrick
Staff writer
Albert Kullberg so loved his wife of 60 years that he couldn’t live without her.
Thing is, though, the Kullbergs’ marriage was never supposed to last. When a young Al Kullberg asked for the hand of Angie Caruso in marriage, some had a problem that he wasn’t Italian.
But the Oak Lawn couple that had once lived in Blue Island proved that true love outlasts petty prejudices.
Mr. Kullberg died Jan. 26, three weeks after the death of his wife on Jan. 3. She took a nasty fall over the holidays, slipped into a coma and never regained consciousness.
Doctors said he died of endstage kidney disease, but loved ones said his heart simply broke once his Angie was gone.
“More than we wanted to hear, he wanted to be with Angie,” said longtime family friend, Claudia Steele. “But I think he’s a happier man for it.”
Albert C. Kullberg was born in Chicago on Aug. 29, 1916, not far from where the Caruso family lived. Though Swedish American, he was buddies with the Caruso boys, and eventually met their younger sister, Angeline.
They married on Aug. 26, 1944, despite their ethnic differences.
“She proved them wrong,” Steele said.
“Ours was the marriage that wasn’t going to last more than a couple of weeks,” Angie would say, mocking her family.
“They were 60 years strong,” Steel added.
In 1950, Mr. Kullberg began working for the Holmdahl Bakery in Chicago’s Grand Crossing community. Within a few years, he was running the place, said friend and former employee Ove Svedberg said
Mr. Kullberg was the night baker, making the dough between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m., Svedberg said. Mrs. Kullberg would come in early in the morning to work the front counter, helping customers and ringing up orders.
They sold all kinds of Swedish goodies at the 606 E. 75th St. location: wedding cakes and pumpernickel bread. Then they moved to a bakery in Oak Park. When Mr. Kullberg retired from his own business years later, the tables turned, and he worked part time for Svedberg.
“He was a very good boss, nice and easygoing,” Svedberg said. “He was a patient man, and he did a lot for me when I first came from Sweden” in 1951.
The Kullbergs kept making gingerbread houses and homemade candies for loved ones, including chocolate Easter baskets and a special gingerbread house for Steele’s children.
“We kept that gingerbread house for several years,” Steele said.
The Kullbergs loved children but never had had any of their own, so they meant everything to each other, Steele said.
They were inseparable, she said.
“I think that’s what made it doubly hard when Angie passed away,” she said. “They worked together; they played together — every waking moment was together.”
In later years, the Kullbergs spent their time together as active members of the Calumet Park Senior Citizens group. They also supported Blue Cap, a Blue Island-based organization for the handicapped.
The Kullbergs had just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary at a dinner party at one of their favorite restaurants, Whitney’s in the Oak Lawn Hilton.
Svedberg said his friend was lost without his wife.
Once Mrs. Kullberg died, her husband’s already poor health — which required dialysis three times a week — worsened.
“He was so set he would die first,” Svedberg said. ” ‘I can’t figure it out,’ he said. It knocked him out.”
The Kullbergs were buried together at Holy Sepulchre cemetery.
Arrangements were by Heeney-Laughlin Funeral Home, (708) 636-5500.
Lauren FitzPatrick may be reached at lfitzpatrick@dailysouthtown.com or (708) 633-5964.
