Koeltzow Family in Grimes County (Final)
“When the Texas Slow Fever struck me in 1900,” young Otto states, “I did not respond to the whiskey treatment. Complications set in, the doctor was called, first he covered my swollen fever-racked body with patches of soothing salve, then swathing these in bandages, then took a red-hot flatiron, pressing it to the bandages. The pain literally made me see stars. I submitted to three of these agonizing treatments. Following the third application, I was cured. Although thin and weak, I left my sickbed for I was badly needed in the fields.”
An Easter-time community party was planned at the Navasota Lutheran Church. “After chores, I saddled up and headed to Navasota. I little knew how far-reaching the Easter party would have on my life. Some Washington County youth had been invited.
“My eye caught a pretty blonde girl, Elizabeth Emshoff was her name. I was too bashful to do much talking; it was enough just to gaze on her and stand at her side. Both of us stayed overnight with friends in Navasota. We both attended Easter Sunday morning services, and I was more at ease, I asked if I could call on her, and if I wrote to her would she answer. A life-time romance began.”
Soon, secretly, young Otto would make his way across the Brazos River into Washington County to the Emshoff family home.
“After supper, Elizabeth, myself, and her family sat on the porch until ten o’clock when her folks went inside to bed. Elizabeth and I talked on until 12. Finally, I mustered enough courage to make a proposal, and she accepted as though she had expected it. That settled, we agreed to keep it secret. Her father had invited me to stay the night, so at midnight I went to the barn to sleep.”
“When September of 1900 arrived, a hurricane nearly destroyed Galveston extending flooding and wind damage through the Koeltzow Grimes County farm that was 92 miles from Galveston. It shoved water beyond us as far north as Waco, 200 miles away. Crops were under several feet of water. No one escaped near total loss of cotton and corn. We managed to drive our livestock to high ground. The Brazos River was seven miles wide in Grimes County. The town of Courtney was under water.”
“Every day we saw hundreds of horses, mules, cows, and hogs floating down the Brazos. Some were alive trying to swim ashore others were dead and bloated floating downstream.”
“That fall we harvested only three bales of cotton on 50 acres. All that we had worked so hard to build up seemed lost. We were dead broke because of the storm.”
“Then one night a friend came into our dooryard, Sherman Kromer. He had just returned from the new country to the north where, he claimed, land was free, and families could make a fresh start in Oklahoma Indian Territory.”
“We were dead broke from the storm, and we discussed the proposed move through the night. Just before daybreak it was decided to leave Texas for Oklahoma Territory. Kromer, himself, was moving north and agreed to guide a group of Grimes County farmers to the free land. They would leave as soon as packed up.”
Otto spoke up, “I’ll go, but wait until I am married, so I can take my wife along.” His parents, unaware of his proposed marriage, were stunned. The family agreed to wait. Otto rushed across the Brazos River to Elizabeth’s home taking a wagon and a team of mules to bring her personal effects.”
Within days, the church marriage of Otto and Elizabeth was performed. Within a few more days the Koeltzow family was enroute to Oklahoma Territory. There, over the next several years, the Koeltzow family divided up, claimed free land, and were successful in the newly opened Indian Territory.
Over time, members of the Koeltzow family often drove back to Grimes County to visit friends and families they had come to know in Grimes County.
(Written from Otto Koeltzow’s Biography, for the Sandbar by Betty Dunn, Two Rivers Heritage Foundation. See www.tworiversheritagefoundation.org for more info and membership).