Crook County Public Library System, Wyoming
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​William Oelkers
 
Son of German immigrants Otto Oelkers and Anna Poppe, William was the youngest in a family of six known children – born in 1889 in Frontier County, Nebraska.  He was raised on his parents farm, attended school in Nebraska and helped out on the family farm. 
 
In 1916, he married Emma Oelkers, daughter of his eldest brother Henry, born to Henry & Minnie Bohl Oelkers in 1899.  She was also a Nebraska girl.  She grew up on her parent’s farm and attended school in Nebraska. After their marriage they came out west to Upton to visit William’s sister, Mrs. Frank Watt.  There was land available next to the Frank Watt place, which was later known as the Triangle T Ranch.  William & Emma both liked it in Wyoming, so they filed for a homestead west of Upton on Buffalo Creek near Moorcroft.  At that time, it was all open range, so they were able to start ranching with a small acreage.  They went through some heard times with a lot of setbacks and disappointments.  They worked hard just like all the men and women that were starting out back then, and through the depression also, but they survived through the hard times and years later they expanded their ranch to 16,000 acres.  They raised sheep and Hereford cattle, their own hay, and some grain to feed their stock.
 
William and Emma were blessed with five children – two of them, Kenneth and Nellie Bernice, passed away as infants during World War I, John, Doris (Ritthaler), and Geraldine (Kossert). 
 
The ranch was operated by the family.  When times got better, with everything running pretty smoothly so they could do some traveling, and with modern equipment so they wouldn’t have to work so hard – William came down with cancer.  They sold their ranch to their sons-in-law Erwin Kossert and Walter Ritthaler.  Two years later William passed away.  Emma continued to live in her house on the ranch, enjoying her grandchildren and great grandchildren, until her death in 196 at the age of 87 years.
 
Erwin Kossert was born in Canada and came to Gillette at the age of six months with his parents, Julius and Amelia Kossert.  They made their home later at the Wyodak Coal Mine.  Erwin’s father was among the first ones to open the pit of the coal mine, using a pick and shovel, team of horses and a fresno.  Erwin also worked at the coal mine.  He was in partnership with Bill Forsha in a gas station and was a postal clerk at the Gillette Post Office.  After graduation he served in World War II, as a Battery clerk in Okinawa.