Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Carl, Leo and Lester were working at other farms much of the time while I was growing up. Hilda (Fuller) and Mildred (Eipperle) worked in Monroe and stayed at Uncle Fred Rambow’s during the week. They would come home on weekends. We all had our chores around home. I don’t ever remember Ma washing the dishes. We all did our share of ironing too.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I had to fill the woodbox with firewood for the stove in the kitchen.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - The boys would do the farm work. The girls never did too much in the fields. We would help out once in a while.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Ma was always there though. She did the baking.
 
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Art worked over to Knapp’s farms.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Carl worked down to Rath’s. Wherever the boy’s worked, they stayed for room and board too.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - One thing that I hated was when Pa would let the cows out to graze along the ditches near the road. I was supposed to watch them and I was scared to death that they would get hit by a car on the road.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We had to pick raspberries, peas and strawberries from the garden.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - We used to hoe weeds out of the corn rows for 5 cents a row. When I would accidentally slice off a stalk of corn, I would prop it up in place praying that Grandpa wouldn’t see it.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We thought 5 cents a row was going to be a lot but the rows ran all the way back to the woods. You got to the end and you would say to yourself, “Ugh, there’s another 5 cents.” You would make about 15 or 20 cents a day at that rate!

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - We used to pick raspberries down to Brossia’s for 3 cents a quart.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - At Spewak’s we would pick beans and at Polley’s we would pick strawberries. I don’t remember how we got to those places but we did.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I can remember picking 80 some quarts once and I only made two dollars and forty cents. You guys would pick over 100 quarts and get over $3.00. Our hands would be all dirty and stained and then at noon, you had to eat your sandwich from a bag. It was all day long in the hot sun. Finally, Ma said, “You don’t have to do that anymore if you don’t want to.”  

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.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - I remember Helma and Herb’s shivery. That was impressive to me.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - They went to Indiana to get married but when they came home, a bunch of relatives and neighbors said, “We’re coming tonight so have some beer ready.”

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I still have the receipt from Jim Malone’s in Ida where Herb went and got the beer. It was a dollar something a case. He got beer and candy and pop for the kids.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Remember they had the old metal wash tubs that they were banging on to make noise?

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - You always had to be careful because they would threatened to take the bride “for a ride” in the truck.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Did they take you for a ride?

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - No they didn’t!

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - You should have heard the noise. John Eipperle put something on his exhaust pipe that made the pipes “whistle” real loud. I remember everyone in the house just holding their ears. They made so much noise!

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - What year did you get married, Helma?

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - 1938

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - So, I would have been 9 years old but I can remember it very well.

Pat (Bicking) Klass - The only place I ever saw a shivery was on The Waltons on T.V.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - They had one for Mildred and John Eipperle too. That was ten years before Herb and I got married though.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - They had those big tubs of beer and everybody came and drank. They just had to have a party.

Word must have passed around the neighborhood and they just showed up at a certain time. You had to have some food and drink ready.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Did you know they were coming?

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Yes. It was on the very first night back from being married. We got back from Hilda’s on Sunday and the shivery was on Monday night. All the relatives from Toledo were invited too. The house was full. The yard was full.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - People would make all kinds of noise banging on pots and tubs.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Yes, and then the newlyweds would have to show themselves on the porch.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Guess you’d say we were kind of a party family.

Pat (Bicking) Klass - At the reunions, I remember having those big horse troughs and everyone would be in there fishing around for beer and pop in the icy water.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - At Lester and Lila’s shivery, I remember them passing out drinks and fresh fried cakes.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Did Lee and Lou have one?

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - I don’t remember, I wasn’t born yet! 

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Norma Miller remembered that Grandma Rambow was a crabby old lady.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - She was very strict evidently. We used to get instruction before we went there that we were to sit quietly and not ask for anything.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I remember going to Aunt Minnie Rambow’s and she would be sitting there reading the Bible. You didn’t dare say a word until she was done with her scripture.

(Note: Uncle Will and Aunt Minne Rambow were Mary (Rambow) Heiden’s brother and sister. They lived together through their adult lives at the family farm on South Custer Rd.)

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - One time Lou and I were wall papering at their house. Uncle Will Rambow came out of the kitchen and stood in the doorway because he had dinner ready. Lou said to me, “We might as well go home now because he won’t let her eat until we leave.” So, although we had only one strip of paper to hang to finish the room, we left for the day and came back the next day so they could eat their dinner.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - That was the quietest house I was ever in, I remember.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I used to have to stay there all summer. That was torture. That’s why I am such a quiet person. (Laughter)

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Tick Tok, Tick Tok, that old clock they had was so loud in the quiet of the room.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - At ten minutes to nine every night, Uncle Will would get the Bible and hand it to Aunt Minnie. She would then read to him in German until 9 o’clock. And I’d set there real still, never saying a word. When she was done, he would take the Bible and put it back on the shelf. Without saying a word, he would go upstairs to bed. There wasn’t any talking going on at all in the house.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - There wasn’t anything for them to do. They didn’t have a radio or anything. After Grandma Rambow died, Herb and I used to go down there to visit. Uncle Willie just loved to play cards. We would have a real good time. Edna and Henry used to go there and have a good time too. The two of them were so used to just sitting there in the quiet by themselves

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - After Aunt Minnie died, Uncle Will finally got a television.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - He had a dog that he used to fry two eggs for each day.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I would think that the Rambows and the Heidens came over from Germany about the same time. They had some of the same type of furniture. Remember that settee that you had, Helma? Grandpa and Grandma Rambow had a similar piece of furniture in their house. Maybe the two families knew each other before they came over from Germany.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Well the Milhans all went to Bridge School way back then too.

(Note: Mary (Rambow) Heiden’s mother was a Milhan.)

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Were the Rambows on the ship list that you got, Ralph?

Ralph Heiden - No but I don’t have the complete list. I only have a copy of the first page with the details about the ship and then the page that lists August Heiden and his family. They were passengers number 304 through 308 so there were probably 400 or more people on the boat. I will check it out. (Note: Turns out the Rambows came one year later in 1874.)

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - It is funny that they lost that baby, Meta and didn’t name some other children after her later on.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Helma, is your middle name, Meta?

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - No, its Nettie. That was Nettie Spohr, they were a neighbor and she stood up for me. She and Aunt Emmie and Uncle Heinrich "Henry" Heiden were my Godparents.