[5][6] Von Mickwitz immigrated to the United States from Wiesbaden, arriving by ship from Antwerp, Belgium, August 19, 1897.
[7] That same year, he was appointed to head the newly established music conservatory at Kidd-Key College in Sherman, Texas.
[8] On October 22, 1902, von Mickwitz became a naturalized U.S. citizen during a ceremony in Federal Court in Sherman, Texas.
[2][8] He left SMU in 1918 to accept a position as a principal piano teacher at the Institute of Musical Art (Juilliard).
In 1934, while teaching in Dallas, von Mickwitz accepted an offer to return to Kidd-Key College to replace Frank Pettis Handy Pipes (1877–1933), who had died.