Although we do not know for sure, it would appear that Heinrich Rambow and his wife, Wilhelmina (Milhan) and August Heiden and his wife, Fredericka (Knaack) probably knew each other in Germany. They were all from the small village of Gross Wokern which only had a few hundred residents during the late 1800s.

August and his family emigrated to America in 1873 and the Rambows followed one year later. Both clans ended up in Raisinville Township, Monroe County, Michigan. Eventually, two of Heinrich's daughters (Mary and Fredareka) married two of August's sons (William Carl and Herman, respectively).

One more "coincidence" was that the Rambows settled on a farm on South Custer Road only a few miles from the home of August Heiden who was a brick mason and builder. Family stories say that August built the Rambow house for them probably in the late 1870s. The first generation Rambows lived their until their deaths and then their two youngest children, William and Wilhelmina "Minnie" lived there until her death in 1962.

Heinrich and Wilhelmina had seven children, all of whom lived into adulthood. The first two, Friedrich "Fred" and Bertha (Rambow) Burgard were born in Germany and made the trip to America with their parents in 1874. The other four, Henry III, Mary (Rambow) Heiden, Fredareka (Rambow) Heiden, William and Wilhelmina "Minnie" were born in Michigan.

According to the 1880 census report, Henry III and Mary were born while the family was living in Dundee Township before they moved to the farm on South Custer Road. William and Minnie never married and lived together at the family farm until their deaths in 1965 and 1962 respectively.

Boarding a ship and leaving your homeland forever was a very stressful time for people from a small, rural village in Germany. It would appear that for the Rambows, preparing to board the S.S. Thuringia was especially challenging according to an account of the journey written by Heinrich and Wilhelmina's daughter in law Caroline (Weilnau) Rambow. This handwritten story was dated November 8, 1925 and we also have additional contributions by Myrna (Drake) Bishop, a great granddaughter of the Rambows.

Wilhelmina Rambow's maiden name was Milhan and some of her relatives also came to America with them. Her brother, Carl Christian Johann Frederick Martin "Fred" Milhan (left) and his wife, Henrietta, emigrated a year earlier and settled only a mile or so away from where the Rambows eventually built their home at 7950 South Custer Road.