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[Note:
Bertha was the daughter of
Herman Heiden, son of August and Rika.]
My
grandparents lived in the Dundee area and we lived near
Shepherd so I did not see them very often.
 My
Grandpa
Heiden died when I was only four years old. When we
visited one time, he was sitting beside a heating stove.
He was blind. They told him who I was and he patted me
on the head. My parents said that a few days before he
died, he could see again.
 My Grandma
Heiden was a short and small person. My grandparents had
immigrated to the USA from Germany in
1873. She didn't
learn to speak English. She was disgusted because her
children didn't teach her grandchildren to speak German.
When I was quite young, Grandma Heiden,
Grandma Rambow,
and
Grandma Stokes (Aunt
Emma (Stock) Heiden's mother - no
relation to us) came on the train to visit us at the
Ruckle place.
Grandma Stokes' son, Jake, was my Dad's
best friend. Grandma Stokes was a large woman and she
sang a song "cherries are ripe, cherries are ripe" to
me. I was only eight years old when Grandma Heiden died.
Aunt Agnes and
Uncle John lived with her.
Aunt Agnes
wanted to make sure all the children got something from
Grandma's estate. They drew the items by lottery. My
mother and dad got a setee but they couldn't fit it in
for the trip back. Then they traded for a platform
rocker that would fit into the car. Grandma had a 24
place setting of an Oak leaf pattern dishes. Every one
got two place settings.
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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,
Ralph Heiden - Do you remember much about your Grandfather, 
Helen (Henning) Heiden - You know, Aunt
Agnes probably had some old papers.
