Leaving for Kansas

March 3, 1930  I took some guests to Jacob K. Loewen in the wagon.  George Siemens and Johan Siemens and my four children went with me to Morris.  At 7:00 p.m. I left by train to go to Kansas.  Had no trouble crossing the border.  Arrived at 10:30 p.m. at Crookston.

The night before a number of guests had come to the Siemens house to say good-bye to Cornelius as he prepared to depart on his trip.  It was customary among Mennonites for friends and relatives to gather at someone’s house before they left on a trip.  Even though Cornelius would be returning soon, a trip to the Kansas was a big undertaking, so they gathered to visit with him, to wish him well, and to remind him of their prayers for him.

Some of those guests had apparently spent the night, probably because they were from the East Reserve, from the area around Steinbach, so it would have been too far for them to go home that night.   So today Cornelius took them in his wagon to the Jacob and Helena Loewens.  Helena W. (Siemens) was Cornelius’ niece.

And then in the afternoon he himself set out on his momentous trip.   His four children, Mary, Jake, Corney, and John, took him the 10 miles/16 km to Morris to the train station.  Two of his nephews, George W. Siemens and John W. Siemens went along.  Surely the children were concerned that their father was setting off on this long journey.  But they were probably also hopeful (and maybe a little worried too) about the changes that this trip would bring to their family.

At 7:00 p.m., Cornelius boarded the Winnipeg Limited, a Great Northern Railway express train that ran nightly from Winnipeg to St. Paul, Minn.  He probably had only a small case with a few changes of clothes, including his best suit, and a basket with food for the trip that Mary would have packed.  He would have traveled in coach.

The train stopped at Emerson, Man., just on the US border, and then stopped at Noyes, Minn., just across the Canadian border.  Cornelius was obviously concerned about crossing the border, but he had no problem.  And at 10:30 p.m., the train arrived in Crookston, Minn., about 130 miles/200 km south of Morris.  It was a small town but a large railway junction for the Great Northern lines.  Cornelius was probably thinking about what this trip would bring and unable to sleep until after they passed through Crookston.

Great Northern Railway Mallet steam locomotive that was built in the 1920s and probably similar to the one that pulled Cornelius' train.  Source:  http://www.gngoat.org/gn_steam_locomotives.htm

Here is a link to a discussion of the Winnipeg Limited, including a timetable from 1969.