Arthur Larry Kirk and Deloris C. Werth
Husband Arthur Larry Kirk
Born: 16 Mar 1935 - Shelton, Hall County, NE Baptized: Died: 23 Oct 1984 - NE Buried: - Westlawn Memorial Cemetery, Grand island, Hall County, NE FamilySearch ID: GSJH-NBP Find A Grave ID: 143600839
Father: Lawrence Alonzo Kirk {FSID: L2D8-YK3, FGID: 35675774} Mother: Verna Mae Kranz {FSID: MCT4-R22, FGID: 35677538}
Marriage: 25 Jul 1954 - Shelton, Hall County, NE
Wife Deloris C. Werth
Born: 1936 Baptized: Died: Buried: FamilySearch ID: GSJH-D92
Children
1 F Brenda Kirk
Born: Baptized: Died: Buried:
2 M Bradley Kirk
Born: Baptized: Died: Buried:
3 M Jeffrey Kirk
Born: Baptized: Died: Buried:
4 F Jaen D. Kirk
Born: 9 Jul 1958 Baptized: Died: 28 Sep 1982 Buried: - Grand Island Cemetery, Grand Island, Hall County, NE Find A Grave ID: 102563488Spouse: Tim R. Plummer Marr: 6 May 1978
General Notes: Husband - Arthur Larry Kirk
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/143600839/arthur-l-kirk
BIRTH
16 Mar 1935
Hall County, Nebraska, USA
DEATH
23 Oct 1984 (aged 49)
Nebraska, USA
BURIAL
Westlawn Memorial Cemetery
Grand Island, Hall County, Nebraska, USA
PLOT
Section J, Lot 103, Space 5
MEMORIAL ID
143600839
Grand Island (Nebraska) Daily Independent
October 1984
Arthur L. Kirk, 49, of Rt 1 Cairo died Tuesday night at his farm home. Services will be Monday at 10:30 a.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church. The Rev. Elroi Reimnitz will officiate. Burial will be in Westlawn Cemetery. Visitation will be...at Apfel-Butler-Geddes Funeral Home in Grand Island...
Mr. Kirk wa born March 16, 1935, on a farm in Hall County near Cairo, the son of Lawrence and Verna Krantz Kirk. He received his education in rural schools and was a graduate of Cairo High School. He entered construction work and later worked for Northwestern Public Service Co., also farming with his father. On July 25, 1954, he married Deloris Werth near Shelton. They lived in Grand Island until 1968 when they moved to an acreage west of the city. In 1971 they moved to a farm east of Cairo, and in 1979 they moved to the Kirk home place. He was a member of Trinity Lutheran church and the National Rifle Association.
Survivors include his widow; a daughter, Brenda...; two sons, Bradley..and Jeffrey..; a grandson...; a brother Robert of Clay Center and a sister, Mrs. Don (Connie) Robertson of Grand Island. He was preceded in death by his parents, a daughter, Jaen Plummer, and a sister, Donna.
Family Members
Parents
Lawrence A. Kirk 1903–1979
Verna May Kranz Kirk 1913–1970
Children
Jaen D. Kirk Plummer 1958–1982
Created by: diaNEB
Added: 11 Mar 2015
Find a Grave Memorial ID: 143600839
memorial page for Arthur L Kirk (16 Mar 1935–23 Oct 1984), Find a Grave Memorial ID 143600839, citing Westlawn Memorial Cemetery, Grand Island, Hall County, Nebraska, USA; Maintained by diaNEB (contributor 47466150).
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GSJH-NBP
"Birth
16 March 1935
Nebraska, United States
Death
23 Oct 1984
Burial
Grand Island, Hall, Nebraska, United States of America"
https://www.ancestry.ca/genealogy/records/arthur-kirk-24-n3d6pq
"Birth
16 March 1935 - Shelton Buff, Nebraska
Death
Oct 1984 - Unavailable
Mother
Verna Mae Katherine Kranz
Father
Lawrence Alonzo Kirk
Born in Shelton Buff, Nebraska on 16 March 1935 to Lawrence Alonzo Kirk and Verna Mae Katherine Kranz. Arthur Kirk passed away on Oct 1984."
https://nebraskastudies.org/en/1975-1999/foreclosures-lead-to-violence/arthur-kirk/
"Arthur Kirk
Arthur Kirk was a farmer who became a tragic symbol of the desperation in agriculture in 1984. Kirk farmed land near Cairo, Nebraska, that had been in his family for three generations. In the early ’80s, he owned about 2,000 acres, but over the years, he had lost all but 240 acres.
In 1984, he and his wife Deloris owed over $300,000 to Norwest Bank in nearby Grand Island. As in most farm loans, the money was "secured" by the value of the land, machinery, livestock, and other property. Earlier, he had had a good relationship with the bank.
But in the early ’80s, Kirk had trouble making his payments as the farm economy got worse. He came across literature from a group called the National Agricultural Press Association. This group and others blamed the farm crisis on eastern bankers who were conspiring to force farmers off the land and were going to take over food production. Many of these groups believed that Jews, bankers, lawyers, judges and even the Masons were plotting together.
The literature that Kirk read advised farmers facing foreclosure to file lawsuits in federal court claiming that the banks’ actions were illegal under "truth in lending laws". Kirk filed his case in July, 1984. His was among 40 such suits filed that year, and the federal judge had already ruled in the first of these cases that they were without merit.
In the meantime, Kirk sold some about $100,000 worth of livestock and crops that had been pledged to the bank. The bank went to court to protect its interests.
On October 23, 1984, three Hall County Sheriff deputies went to Kirk’s farm to serve legal documents demanding the return of the $100,000 from the sale of crops and livestock. They got to the farm about 1:45 in the afternoon. The deputies later said that Kirk pulled a pistol out and threatened the officers. He claimed that a sign with the words, "Posted, Keep Out," barred anyone from coming uninvited onto his land.
The deputies left, but stayed close by and watched as Arthur Kirk continued to bring in his soybean harvest.
About 4:30 P.M., a reporter from The Grand Island Daily Independent arrived at the farm and talked with Arthur. Kirk told the reporter:
"It’s not the sheriff’s duty to carry out the banker’s dirty duties like that."
Kirk indicated that he was going to fight for what was left of his farming operation. He told the reporter it was time for farmers to fight back . . . "like they had in 1776." He suggested vigilante groups (civilians who take the law into their own hands) might be needed to protect farmers. "If they ever get organized — they’re not organized — they’ll have to be reckoned with."
Kirk denied that he was a member of radical groups like the Posse Comitatus, a group that was beginning to gain attention in stressed rural areas. But he defended the reputation of the Posse. "That’s a much maligned term," Kirk told the reporter:
Kirk indicated he thought his telephone was tapped, and that someone had been listening to his telephone conversations for several weeks. Kirk said,
"I’m not afraid of them. . . . I’d rather fight them in court, but I’ll do it this way. . . . I don’t belong in a dirty, damn jail."
In the meantime, law enforcement officials had gone before a judge and gotten an arrest warrant for Kirk. They also asked that the State Patrol SWAT team be called in with their automatic weapons and special training. The police were aware of a number of guns that Kirk owned. At first, the county attorney denied the request because the charges against Kirk were not serious enough. But the judge agreed with the police, and the SWAT team was called in.
The farm was surrounded. That evening, the State Patrol started talking with Kirk over the phone. At one point, they brought in Arthur’s wife Deloris and Steen Stone, a Palmer Nebraska farmer who had met Arthur at a National Agricultural Press Association meeting a year earlier. Both Deloris and Stone talked with Arthur, but he refused to leave the farm.
Kirk later telephoned the reporter around 8:30 P.M. He said,
"I know they’re coming for me. . . . I am ready to die, but I’m going to take a lot of them with me."
A potentially deadly standoff had developed."
https://nebraskastudies.org/en/1975-1999/foreclosures-lead-to-violence/kirk-radical-farm-groups/
"Arthur Kirk: Kirk & Radical Farm Groups
In the early 1980s, there were several radical farm groups that had organized to prevent the loss of farms. The groups had different prescriptions for how to solve the problems of agriculture, but they shared a belief that farmers weren’t to blame for their problems. Instead, these groups blamed a conspiracy of powerful national and international groups — like Jews or Masons — who were trying to take over the food system.
Arthur Kirk denied that he was a member of any of these groups, but he did have literature from some and had stockpiled over 25 guns, a gas mask, and an Army helmet in his house. Some investigators believed that Kirk belonged to the Posse Comitatus, a militant organization whose members were linked to tax resistance and violence.
We do know that Kirk had attended at least one meeting of the National Agricultural Press Association, a group of farmers who were looking at the U.S. Constitution for protection against foreclosure. Kirk filed a lawsuit acting as his own attorney arguing that all loans written after 1974 were invalid because the contracts violated the federal Truth-in-Lending Act.
The suit was very similar to almost 40 others filed that year by farmers in Nebraska. These suits also demanded millions of dollars in damages. But Judge Warren Urbom wrote in July that Kirk’s case was "utterly lacking in merit, as I have repeatedly said in similar cases."
Kirk was also active in Nebraskans for Constitutional Government and the National Commodity and Barter Exchange, groups that advocated unconventional legal and constitutional schemes to solve financial problems.
The radical measures advocated by these groups was a measure of the desperation that farmers felt in the face of the farm crisis. There were a lot of farmers who seemed to agree with the views of the radicals.
Nebraska State Patrol Superintendent Elmer Kohmetscher said that year that Nebraska was probably home to a considerable number of radicals who were heavily armed and potentially dangerous. These radicals posed a potential threat to both the police officers and the general public.
Kohmetscher said an investigation in the North Platte area in 1983, for example, showed that at least 23 people had bought fully automatic weapons that had no real use in hunting. One man alone bought eight Uzi machine guns that could be converted to fully automatic with very little effort.
Officials did not know where Arthur Kirk bought his guns, but the growing numbers of high-power weapons worried many. As the farm crisis grew more desperate, people worried that more violence would follow."
https://nebraskastudies.org/en/1975-1999/foreclosures-lead-to-violence/the-shootout/
"Arthur Kirk: The Shootout
As the evening of October 23, 1984, wore on, Arthur Kirk became more and more desperate and angry. Negotiations over the phone had broken down. His wife, Deloris, had talked with him at around 9:30 P.M., and she had urged him to hang up the phone and remember "the plans" they had. (She never explained what she meant by the phrase.) Moments later she wrote a note to an acquaintance standing next to her that said her husband would never leave the farm alive.At the farm, it was dark. Members of the SWAT team were in place around the farm house. Kirk had painted camouflage patterns on his face. He was wearing a gas mask and a steel Army helmet. Outside the SWAT team heard Kirk screaming and yelling.All of a sudden, Kirk came running out of the back door carrying an AR-15 army-type rifle that was converted for automatic firing. Two policemen ordered Kirk to stop. But he kept running toward a windmill where he had built a fortress out of sandbags.Kirk fired twice at the SWAT team voices. They saw the muzzle flashes. At least two policemen returned fire.Officer R. A. McGuire said later,
"It’s instantaneous, there’s no thought process, I’m just returning the fire. He’s gone."
McGuire could no longer see Kirk, but no one knew if he’d been hit.In the meantime, another officer was firing from the opposite direction. A total of about 30 rounds were fired. Kirk had been hit twice, once in the thigh and once in the chest. It took several minutes for police to find Kirk in the darkness. He lived for a few minutes after the shooting, but quickly bled to death.
“Cairo Farmer Dies in Shootout ”The Grand Island Daily Independent Wednesday, October 24, 1984"
https://nebraskastudies.org/en/1975-1999/foreclosures-lead-to-violence/the-investigation/
"Arthur Kirk: The Investigation
After Arthur Kirk was killed by a Nebraska State Patrol SWAT team, some charged that the killing was not justified and that Kirk was allowed to bleed to death while the Hall County Sheriff was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. The legislature and Governor Bob Kerrey appointed former Lincoln judge Samuel Van Pelt as a special investigator to review the case and the charges.
His report was released in December, 1984. Van Pelt said that the death of Kirk could have been prevented, but police acted in a prudent manner under difficult circumstances. Van Pelt concluded that the slaying of Kirk by the Nebraska State Patrol SWAT team occurred because of "too many unrelated and coincidental factors" and wasn’t an orchestrated killing by police as some of Kirk’s friends had claimed.
The highlights of the report were:
The state should consider a moratorium or limitation on foreclosures on farm loans to give the agricultural economy time to recover and to give farmers under stress time to cool down and repair their finances.
Ministers and psychologists could go along when foreclosure papers had to be served to farmers on the edge. They also could be used in negotiations during hostage situations and other emergencies.
Criteria for selection for SWAT team members and implementing the team should be spelled out in greater detail.
Kirk’s lender, Norwest Bank of Grand Island, was not at fault.
At the point Kirk left the house, "He had reached such a state of paranoia that it is difficult to hold him responsible for his actions." Van Pelt also said that Kirk’s troubled state of mind might have been fueled by radical groups.
"Kirk’s faith would have been better placed in his own church and religion, or in an agriculturally oriented support group like the Farm Crisis Response Council, sponsored by the Inter Church Ministries of Nebraska."
Finally, Van Pelt said the farm crisis was the real cause of the killing.
"The first causation factor, and the backdrop of the entire scenario, is the farm economy."
It could have been worse. Van Pelt said it’s lucky that the Patrol did not try to use tear gas to catch Kirk. Kirk had a gas mask, and if the Patrol had used gas and then rushed the house — thinking that Kirk was incapacitated — several officers could have been shot. The SWAT team was "passive and not provocative" in its actions, Van Pelt concluded."
General Notes: Wife - Deloris C. Werth
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/143600839/arthur-l-kirk
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GSJH-D92
"Birth
1936
Death - deceased" [***NOTE: it is possible this individual is still alive]
Notes: Marriage
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/143600839/arthur-l-kirk
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