The Old Home Place

Life on the Kokenge Family Farm

On Saturday, April 14, 2001, after the Kokenge Family Reunion in Alton, Iowa, several cousins made a pilgrimage out to the "old home place," the Kokenge farm 2.5 miles east of Alton. There they met Mr. Edward Recker, who now resides in the farm house, and who agreed to let them look around the farm and take photographs. This is the farm where Henry Kokenge lived with his first wife, Catherine Goebel, who was the mother of his four oldest children (Johnny, Anton, Ernest, and Anna). After Catherine's death, Henry Kokenge married Josephine Nemmers, and they lived on this farm with Henry's their ten children until after Josephine's untimely death in 1918. More family history information will soon be added to this page to help flesh out the story of life on the Kokenge farm.


Verna Bunkers and Barbara & Nils Pasternak walk in front of the farm house.	Here's a view from the back side of the farm house looking out past the land (left) to the gravel road way.

The old barn is still standing but is no longer in use.	Nils Pasternak, Dale Bunkers, and Rachel Bunkers- Harmes are on their way to peek peek inside the barn door.

Here's a storage shed (out back. What did it used to be?)	The old machine shed was later converted into a garage.

And let's not forget the little outhouse on the prairie . . . .	Verna and Barbara return to pose on the front porch.