| Notes |
- FRANZ D. GOOSSEN OBITUARY
Our Father, Franz D. Goossen, was born January 22, 1901, 2 miles north and 2 miles east of Alexanderwohl Church, to Franz M. Goossen and Susanna (Duerksen) Goossen, the oldest child in a family of 10 boys.
He attended Antioch Elementary School and one year at Hillsboro Academy.
Father was baptized by Rev. P. H. Unruh and was received at that time into the membership of the Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church.
On April 10, 1924, Franz D. Goossen and Anna Schmidt (our mother) were married in the Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church with Rev. C. C. Wedel and Rev. P. H. Unruh officiating.
The newly married couple moved to a farm southwest of Hillsboro for about a year. The explored the idea
of settling in Dalhart, Texas, in construction, but Mother wanted to be on the farm so in 1926 they purchased a quarter section in Thomas County from Ray Garvey, who was in the real estate business in Colby at that time and they moved to the Mingo community southeast of Colby. Father was a real pioneer in a new settlement. He and Mother established a farmstead on the virgin prairie. He broke sod with two horses he brought from Central Kansas and a third borrowed from Ray Garvey, using a one bottom walking sod busting plow. They lived in an A-frame shelter until they could get the barn built. The center part of the barn became their dwelling while their basement house was under construction. The kitchen floor was a thick natural rug of buffalo grass that they irrigated and kept growing. The weather was cold and the clouds hung low the day they moved into their basement house. The next morning there was a blanket of snow
on the ground. Their three children, Ruth, Leona, and Levi were born in that basement house.
He was the first treasurer and one of the main organizers of the Mingo Coop Grain Co., Colby, Kansas. He also help organize the High Plains Rural Electric Cooperative of Colby and Goodland, and the North Newton Public Housing Authority. He served on the first boards of directors of those organizations. He was also a charter member of the Meadow Mennonite Church located at Mingo, Kansas, and planned and did much of the work on their church building which was dedicated in 1952.
In 1963 our parents had a farm sale and moved to North Newton. They joined the Life Enrichment Program Series at Bethel College.
In April of 1984, they moved to The Schowalter Villa in Hesston.
He leaves his three children, Ruth and her husband, George Unger, of Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada; Leona and her husband, Roland Saltzman, of Shickley, Nebraska; and Levi and his wife, Rose, of Newton, Kansas. His wife, Anna (Schmidt) Goossen predeceased him on December 21, 1988.
He also leaves four brothers, Alvin of Moundridge, Ferdinand of Goessel, Edward of Colby, and Walter of
Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and one step sister, Hilda Ratzlaff. Five brothers preceded him in death, John, William, Abraham, Heinrich, and Cornelius, and step sister, Anna Schmidt. He also leaves ten grandchildren and seven great-granddaughters. One grandson, Brian Saltzman, preceded him in death.
(Info from www.fmgoossenfamily.com)
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1901 - 1994 (93 years)
