According to 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[Goodwin] and move to Alva. They purchased a farm southeast of town … Fred Lohmann and August Kahnert drove the horses and two wagons from Shattuck[Goodwin] 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.”

• WHAT: William Kirmse family ready 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]; Wilhelm “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
• SOURCE: Shared by Helen (Kirmse) Hacker October 2003
• NOTES:
  • The barn in the background matches that described by William Kirmse as an improvement in his Land Patent application.
  • 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 two years later.
  • Fred Lohmann and August Kahnert helped the William Kirmse’s move by driving the horses and wagons from Goodwin, Oklahoma to Alva, Oklahoma.

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 kept to their own close family circles. My father said that he never had a playmate until his sister, Edna, was born. And, when Edina died, he was very lonely.

Details

• Margaretha (Meier) Cordes, Julius Henry Kirmse, and Wilhelm “William” Kirmse.
  

  

• Martha (Cordes) Kirmse.
  

  

• These two men (Fred Lohmann and August Kahnert) helped the William Kirmse’s move by driving the horses and wagons from Goodwin, Oklahoma to Alva, Oklahoma.
  

  

Travel Routes

As can be seen in the following railroad map, there is a direct route between Goodwin and Alva.

And that was the obvious way to move people and equipment to Alva, Oklahoma.

Why did Fred Lohmann and August Kahnert drive the horses and two wagons from Goodwin to Alva? I suspect that there were no railroad facilities for loading livestock at Goodwin. Possibly they could have driven the livestock to Shattuck and loaded them there. For whatever reason, they drove the horses (in the picture they mostly look like mules to me) and wagons to Alva.

To travel to Alva from Goodwin requires crossing the Cimarron River which forms the western border of Woods County. In 1910, only railroad bridges crossed the Cimarron River. Otherwise it was necessary to ford the river. Selecting a place to cross the Cimarron River must be done carefully.

In western Oklahoma, the river is known as the Dry Cimarron River. The Dry Cimarron River is not completely dry, but sometimes its water entirely disappears under the sand in the river bed. The Dry Cimarron River can be treacherous to cross because this underflow of water causes quicksand conditions to.occur.

Notes

1. KIRMSE, WILHELM (WILLIAM) family biography, from “Pioneer Footprints Across Woods County 1893-1975” by the Cherokee Strip Volunteer League,  1976. p.378.