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Wilma Bicking Mildred Heiden Jeannie Heiden Ralph Heiden
Helen Heiden Wm Frank Heiden Dianne Houpt Pat Klass
Helma Nickel Mary Lou Opfermann

Marie Tommelein 

Brick Tommelein 

Listed below are excerpts from transcriptions of audio tapes of two meetings with different combinations of the people shown here. They occurred on May 28 and September 25, 1995. For the entire script, Click Here.

  • Wilma, Jeannie, Wm, Helma and Marie were children of Wm Carl Heiden

  • Mildred was married to Arthur Heiden and was mother of Ralph Heiden

  • Helen was wife of Wm Frank and they were parents of Dianne

  • Pat was daughter of Wilma Bicking

  • Mary Lou is daughter of Leo and Lucille Heiden

  • Ralph, Dianne, Pat and Mary Lou were first cousins

 

Ralph Heiden - What kind of farm did Grandma and Grandpa have while you were growing up?

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We raised pigs to butcher.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Ma raised geese. She made us all a feather bed from the down.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I got flogged by a goose once. Believe me, they could hurt you!

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Aunts and Uncles would get together pull out the down and put them in bags and dry them for mattresses. Feather beds.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Remember how we used to be afraid to get the eggs out from under the old setting hens? They’d pick you on the hands if you reached in for the eggs.

Pat (Bicking) Klass - We would throw corncobs at them to get them off the nest. Aunt Helen would say, “What’s the matter with you?” and reach in and pull them out with her hand.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - We would take a stick and hold their head down and then reach in to take the eggs from the nest.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - They were old setting hens and they did not want to get off the nest. There were always a few that just wouldn’t get off the nest for you.

Pat (Bicking) Klass - We would beg Helen to let us help get the eggs. Then the next day, she would wonder what all those corncobs were doing in the nests.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - You always had a nasty rooster out there too that would come after you. You’d be scared stiff. I remember Ma would kill the chickens. She hold them down and take the ax and cut off the heads and then dunk them in hot water. Then she’d pick the feathers off them and we’d have to pull out those darn pinfeathers. She’d cut them all up and soak them in some sort of saltwater over night. The next morning, boy, that would make the best chicken! They don’t taste like that now.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - My dad used to cut the heads off like that on Saturday. Then he’d let them run around and us kids would laugh. Then he’d dip them in hot water and come in and dump them on the table. That was the end of his part. It was Mother’s job from then on.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - When we first got married, Bill noticed that William and Helen always had chickens in the freezer. He said, “Why don’t we put some chickens in our freezer too?”

I said, “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

William asked Bill, “You want some chickens? Come on out next week. I’ve got some and you can have them.”

So we went out there. William started to cut off the heads and stuck them into a sleeve thing that held them while they bled out. And the chickens were bleeding and squirming around.

Before long, William turned around and said, “Where’s Bill?”

Bill had disappeared around the corner of the shed. We went around to find him and he said, “My God, I’ll never eat another chicken in my life!”

He never talked about putting chickens in the freezer after that.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - That’s the city kid in him.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - That smell when you put them in the hot water was enough to put anyone off chicken.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Talking about chickens. They have those Amish chickens every once in a while at the store and they taste like real chickens like we used to have on the farm.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - I bet they’re corn fed. And they let them run in the field too.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I haven’t been able to find them since. They don’t have any chemicals and stuff fed to them.

Pat (Bicking) Klass - It’s amazing we eat anything anymore.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Ma would take the chickens in the house and light a rolled up newspaper and singe off the remaining feathers.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We had guinea hens too.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - They were like watchdogs. They would start to “holler” and make loud noises that would chase animals away.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - The best time was when Pa would kill a pig. We would have fresh liver that night. Boy that was fresh and delicious! They would slice it real thin and they would make that dark, black gravy. Wilma never liked it but I loved that dark gravy!

I tried buying liver at Baisley’s and I brought it home but it was nothing like what we used to have when we lived on the farm.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I would just hate it when I knew they were going to butcher because I would come home and they would have liver for supper.

That is the only time I can remember that Ma bent her rules. Normally, we were expected to eat whatever was put on the table. But, I hated liver so much and almost got sick so finally she said, “Oh, all right, I’ll fry you an egg and don’t act so foolish.”

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Art used to talk about catching the blood from the pigs as they butchered them. They would make blood cheese and sausage.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - That was something I could never eat. I don’t remember them making it very much.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - We were talking the other day about “souse” (spelling?) and head cheese and those things.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - They also made that apple stuff with the cracklings and things when they butchered.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - That was from frying out the lard. They mixed that with apples.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Pa always made the mettwurst out in the smokehouse.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Boy, that is one thing that you cannot buy. Not that tastes like that did. Carl was the last one who could make it taste like that.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Remember all the wine and cider barrels in the basement? They’d tell us to go down and siphon off some of the wine with a hose once in a while.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - I can still smell that wine down there. Remember when we got drunk that time?

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We siphoned off too much. They were playing cards and they told us to go down and get a pitcher of wine. We would just empty off all the glasses before refilling them. Pretty soon we were.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Remember how mad they got?

Ralph Heiden - Was everything you used at home mostly homemade?

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Everything. I don’t ever remember buying any canned goods back then.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - We used to have a grocery wagon come by every Monday. A guy named Jake Myers traveled around from his store in Strasburg (Michigan).

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - He had a big truck that he would drive around the countryside selling his goods.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Ma would go out to the road when he would come by with a basket of eggs and trade them for groceries.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I remember peaking over the edge of the truck and looking at the box of candies. I don’t know what you would get for a basket of eggs. Maybe some somersausage.

Ma and Pa would go to town, to Monroe, once in a while and come home with link balognas in buns with mustard on them.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - That would be our Saturday night supper.

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Art used to say, “Give me a tase of one of them der buns.”

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Pa went to the mill with the wheat to get flour.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - He would trade bags of wheat for bags of flour.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Then he went to Heck’s Market right across the street.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I think it’s Schroeder’s now.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Pa would also buy peanuts. Peanuts in the shell which he just loved.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - That must be where my Dad (Leo Heiden) got his love for peanuts in the shell too. 

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - When we lived with Grandma and Grandpa, I can remember having to come down to the living room whenever there was a thunder storm.
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Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - He was always afraid that he wouldn’t be able to get us down from upstairs if the house was ever hit by lightning. So, in the middle of the night, if a storm came up, we had to get dressed and come down and sit together in the living room until the storm was over.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - We had to get dressed since we were not allowed to come downstairs in our night clothes. That’s the way us kids were raised.

When Marie got married and the first storm came along, she woke Brick up in the middle of the night and said, “Get your pants on and get downstairs.”

He came into the living room and asked, “What’s wrong? Where are we going?”

Marie said, “Don’t be smart! We’re not going anyplace. It’s storming.”

Brick said, “Oh, for crying out loud.” and went back to bed.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - It seems like we used to have more serious storms back then too.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Remember the balls of lightning that would come right through the telephone lines and into the house?

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - It did that once when we lived at Suchik’s. The lightning came right through the phone and blew it clear across the kitchen. It was a wonder that one of the girls wasn’t talking on the phone at the time.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Edna used to be very concerned about electrical storms. I used to stay up there with them sometimes.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - That was probably because they didn’t have any electric lights. They just had a kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - When Henry (Rambow) (right) would blow that lamp out, it went pitch black in the house. You could hear the sheep “baa” out in the barnyard in the night. I used to lay there in the back bedroom saying to myself, “I hope it gets to be morning soon!” That was really scary.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - How about the time while Helen, Wilma, Marie and Helma were all still at home. Helma and Marie went out on dates one night.

Helma and Wilma were supposed to sleep together and Helen, Marie and I shared a bed. I always had to sleep in the middle.

We were scaredy cats so we talked Wilma into sleeping with us. When the others came home, Marie climbed in too so we ended up with four of us packed like sardines in one bed and Helma by herself in the other.

Ralph Heiden - What effect did the Great Depression have on the Heiden family?

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - It didn’t seem to impact us a lot at home on the farm.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - When I started at River Raisin Paper Company in 1929 or 30, I got 18 cents an hour.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I had to pay 25 cents a day for a ride to high school and some weeks it was awfully tough to come up with that $1.25.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We didn’t have buses in those days. If you went to high school, you had to find a ride with someone.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Viola Chambers used to give me a ride. Burkes across the river used to drive too.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I had Bonnie Zorn take me to Dundee.

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Art used to work for a dollar a day plus dinner during those times.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Roy Salow worked for us for $30 a month.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - And he probably didn’t have anything to spend it on either.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Pa didn’t get a lot of schooling but he was very good with math.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - He only went through the sixth grade at Bridge School. But, if he were going to put barley in the bin, he could sit down and figure out how many bushels there were to go in. He could figure out most anything.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - When we had math problems from school, he could always help us out. People were intelligent without necessarily having to go to school for a long time.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I only went to the Bridge School for seven years. When I started there, Harrison Dentel was the teacher. All the classes were together in the same room. I was the only one in the first grade so he moved me up with the second graders. So, when it came to the end of the year, he passed me on to the third grade. So I kept going and graduated from the eighth grade when I was thirteen.

Ralph Heiden - The Heidens overall seem like a pretty sharp bunch of people. I haven’t found too many who are down and out.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Wilma was third in her high school class.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Jeanie was Salutatorian of hers.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Yeah, I had to work real hard to beat Wilma. Then, when I had to give the speech at graduation, I was wishing I had been third.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Professor Ayris said he thought I should have gotten Salutatorian because the girl who got it had transferred in from another school. He said that the records from that school said that she had gotten all A’s and there was nothing he could do about. He wanted to make me class Historian so I could give a speech too but I said, “No thank you!”

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - When Wilma was in the fourth grade, she won the county spelling bee against everyone, even the eighth graders and won all those medals.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I remember the day of an assembly in Monroe High School auditorium when they asked, “Is Wilma Heiden in the audience?” I stood up and they started clapping but the announcer said, “Where is she? I can’t see her.” Finally, I had to get up on my chair and everybody started cheering.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Harrison Dentel wanted me to get into the spelling bee because Wilma had won it but I was too bashful for that stuff.

Ralph Heiden - A lot of the Heidens went to Bridge School. It went from kindergarten to eighth grade. How many students would there be at the school in the average year?

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Oh, about fifty or sixty. Harrison Dental would be the only teacher.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We were all in the same room together. Everybody would be sitting at their desks and he would call up one class at a time to work on their lessons. That used to help the younger ones, I think. We would sit back there and, when we were in the second grade, we would get done with our work and then listen to the third grade go through their lesson. By the time you got there the next year, you pretty well knew most of it already.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - By the time we got to the seventh or eighth grade, we would be allowed to help with the first graders and teach them.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I can still remember that old Regulator clock on the wall. It made a loud “Tick! Tick! Tick” sound!

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - The teacher had a length of rubber hose in his desk. And, boy, he would use it too!

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - He would be teaching another class up front in the room but, if you turned around to talk to someone, he would spot you. All of a sudden, “Whop!”, he would snap you behind the head with the hose.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - He wore those big, black high top shoes and he would walk on the balls of his feet.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - He always tiptoed around.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We always called him, “Tippy toes!” 

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I have the 100th Anniversary Book for Bridge School if you would like to see it sometime, Ralph.

Ralph Heiden - When you reached the end of the eighth grade, then what?

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - People back then always thought that 8th grade was enough schooling for anyone.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - You didn’t have to go on to high school in those days. I was the first one in our family to go. Harrison Dentel came to the house when I finished the 8th grade. He said, “She’s only twelve years old. What is she going to do here at home? She should go on to high school.” Pa didn’t like the idea at all.

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Art wanted to go on to high school so bad too. But when he was in 8th grade, they wouldn’t even let him go to Ida to take the entrance exam.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - They thought going to high school was foolishness. But finally, Harrison Dental talked and talked to them about Wilma and they gave in. Then, when my time came several years later, I had to beg and beg. Pa said, “All Wilma learned up there was foolishness. Going to parties and such foolishness.” But, they finally gave in and I got to go.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I was in the class play my junior and senior years. Elizabeth Johnson lived across the river and she would come to pick me up to take me to practice. When it was time for the play, they asked if my mother and dad were coming. I had to say, “No.” I wouldn’t have thought about asking them. Pa would have thought that it was really a lot of nonsense.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Back when I would have gone, you would have had to pay tuition to go to high school. The pastor’s kids were going to go and I could have gone with them but I would have had to walk to the parsonage to catch the ride every day.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Our road was mud at that time and we often had to walk to the corner to get a ride somewhere. You could usually get down to where Henry and Edna lived. When I started working at River Raisin Paper, I rode with John Beaudrie and I had to meet him down at the corner at 6:30 every morning.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I remember one Christmas Eve, everybody who came over for the party got stuck on the road. They had to get the tractor out and pull everybody out of the mud.

Ralph Heiden - Did you get snowed in very often back then?

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Oh, I can remember walking down the ditches that were full of snow.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - We would still walk to the Bridge School no matter how deep the snow was then. It used to get a crust on top and it would be up as high as the fence posts. We would walk across that and have a lot of fun.

There were always a bunch of us on the way to and from school each day. There would be Walter (left) and Lavern Berns, (right) Lloyd Rath, Junior Barnaby and Harry Karney. There would be a whole gang of us. I remember hitting Junior Barnaby over the head with my lunch bucket. He fell down and I thought I really hurt him but he was O.K. 

  1. Edna Berns
  2. Lavern Berns
  3. Walter Berns
  4. Wilma Bicking
  5. Myrna Bishop
  6. Donna Burge
  7. Janice Clark
  8. Bertha & Cecil Drake
  9. Mildred Eipperle
  10. Hilda Fuller
  11. Arthur Heiden
  12. August & Rika Heiden
  13. August Heiden Children
  14. Carl Heiden
  15. Emma Heiden
  16. Ernst Heiden
  17. Heinrich Heiden Children
  18. Helen E. Heiden
  19. Henry Wm Heiden
  20. Herman and Reka Heiden
  21. John Heiden
  22. Leo Heiden
  23. Lester Heiden
  1. Mary Heiden
  2. Norma "Jeanie" Heiden
  3. Wm Carl & Mary Heiden No 1
  4. Wm Carl & Mary Heiden No 2
  5. Wm Frank Heiden
  6. Dianne Houpt
  7. Lena Koster
  8. Laas/Burmeister
  9. Linda Miller
  10. Helma Nickel
  11. Mary Lou Opfermann
  12. Rambow Family
  13. The Rambows by Drake
  14. Grandma Rambow
  15. Minnie & Wm Rambow
  16. Carol Toburen
  17. Marie Tommelein
  1. Walter Berns Poem
  2. Bridge School
  3. Christmas Eve Party
  4. Dentist Visit
  5. Dixon Rd Lots
  6. The Depression
  7. John Eipperle Fun Times
  8. The Farm House
  9. Five Generations
  10. German Book
  11. Germany
  12. Grape Community
  13. August Heiden Documents
  14. Herman and Reka Heiden Article
  15. Higher Ed
  16. Home Farm
  17. Indian Burial Ground
  18. Leo Heiden Homes
  19. Letters from Germany
  1. Life on the Farm
  2. Lutheran Church
  3. Mary Heiden Cooking
  4. Mary Heiden Health
  5. Mecklenburg, Germany
  6. Middle Names
  7. Mildred Eipperle's Death
  8. Nephews
  9. Helma Nickel's Cooking
  10. Old Receipts
  11. Reunions
  12. School Days
  13. Sparrow Hunting
  14. Stormy Weather
  15. Wedding Shiveree
  16. Willows by the River
  17. The Woodlot
  18. Work on the Farm