15

• WHAT: William Kirmse family preparing to move to Alva, Oklahoma
• LEFT TO RIGHT: Fred Lohmann and August Kahnert[Holding the reins of horses and mules]; Margaretha (Meier) Cordes and Julius Henry Kirmse[in the buggy], and William Kirmse[ Holding the reins of two mules]; Martha (Cordes) Kirmse [in front of a cow]
• WHEN: December, 1910 – just before the William Kirmse family moved to Alva.
• WHERE: apparently was taken on the Kirmse homestead near Goodwin, Oklahoma[1]
• SOURCE: Shared by Helen (Kirmse) Hacker October 2003.
• NOTES:
  1. The barn in the background matches that described by William Kirmse as an improvement in his Land Patent application.
  2. Margaretha (Meier) Cordes supposedly stayed with her youngest daughter and son-in-law, Marie (Cordes) and Henry Lohmann, in Goodwin until they moved to Alva.
  3. Fred Lohmann and August Kahnert helped the William Kirmse’s move by driving the horses and wagons from Shattuck, Oklahoma to Alva, Oklahoma.

As per the biography of Wilhelm “William” Kirmse and Martha (Cordes) Kirmse[1] – “After three crop failures, and since William had always liked the country around Alva, he and Martha decided to sell their land at Shattuck and move to Alva. They purchased a farm southeast of town … Fred Lohmann and August Kahnert drove the horses and two wagons from Shattuck to Alva for them. William came on the freight train with all their machinery and personal belongings. Martha and son Julius came by train a few days later arriving at sunset, just before Christmas in 1910.”

My father, Julius Henry Kirmse, said there were several additional considerations that went into deciding to move:

• William Kirmse had received his Land Patent in February of 1910. Now he owned the land and could sell the property without relinquishing it if he moved.
• When Martha and William’s daughter, Edna,  died in July, 1909, they buried her in the Alva Zion Lutheran Cemetery – apparently they were already planning the family move to Alva.
• Social Isolation.  According to my father, his parents, William and Martha Kirmse, had encouraged other people from Perry County to move to Oklahoma. However, only the sister of Julius’s mother, Maria (Codes) Lohmann, and her family were close at hand to socialize with. My father said that while the German Russian neighbors and church members were friendly, they stayed in their own close family circles[2]. My father also remembered that he never had a playmate until his sister, Edna, was born. And, when Edina died, he was very lonely.

Notes

1. KIRMSE, WILHELM (WILLIAM) family biography, from “Pioneer Footprints Across Woods County 1893-1975” by the Cherokee Strip Volunteer League,  1976. p.378.  Scanned April 8, 2015.
2. Timothy Egan, ‘The WORST HARD TIME – The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the The Great American Dust Bowl’. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, New York, New York. 2006. Chapter 4 High Plans Deutsch, page 68.  Timothy Egan describes the Volga German-Russians and gives the life history of a Voga German-Russian named George Alexander Ehrlich who homesteaded about a mile east of the William and Martha Kirmse homestead.