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 Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Every Saturday, Pa would drop us off while he was on his way
to Ida to get a haircut. He would usually stop off at the beer
garden for a beer and Ma would smell his breath when he got home. He would say, “I only had one.”
Ma would sometime say, “Your eyes look like you had more than one.”
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - One time we were in the dining room and Pa had gone to Ida.
He was late, supper was ready and he wasn’t home. Ma was kind of
walking the floor and looking out the window down the road.
Finally, we saw the car coming down Dixon Road but instead of
turning into the driveway, he pulled into the lane by the field. I
guess that was a day when he had more than one in Ida.
He caught it from Ma that day!
 Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Grandpa had that big old three seated car. It was a
Hudson, I think. There were pull down seats in the middle of the car
and nice velvety upholstery. That was really something!
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - It was a nine passenger car. I could never understand how Pa
could afford that big old car. He had that since I was in grade
school because all the kids would say, “Here comes the bus.”
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - In 1941, we bought a new Plymouth for $800. We drove that
car through the entire war years. That was the “big old black
Plymouth.”
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I used to drive it too. I worked as an extra all the time
and I would get called in when they needed me. Pa let me drive it to
work as long as I paid for the gas.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Here is one of the funniest
things I heard my dad say. We went to church on Sunday and we
were getting into the car when Norm Capaul, the funeral
director, came along.
Norm said, “I’ll be seeing you Mr. Heiden.” Pa replied, “I hope
I’ll be seeing you too!”
 The
picture is not the actual car owned by Wm Carl Heiden but
is a 1940 Hudson.
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Ralph Heiden - What did Grandpa Heiden do for a living? Didn’t he work as a
carpenter in addition to farming?
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - He worked for
Henry Milhan as a carpenter sometimes. I know
he helped build a couple of houses over on Lewis Avenue as you go
into Ida. The Sheid house and one for the Feinauers, I think. He
also worked on
Ed Miller’s place too.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I remember them building that front porch on the house. They
laid the blocks and built it form the ground up. |
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 Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Pa was pretty lenient about that kind of thing. Ma wasn’t so
easy going. When she said, “No.” she meant it and there would be no
arguing with her. You never asked, “Why not?”
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I did once. Joe Long called and asked if I could go to the
show with him. He was older than I was and I was about 15 or 16 at
the time. I was on the phone with him and turned around to ask Ma if
I could go to the show that night.
She said, “Who with?”
I said, “Joe Long.”
She said, “No.”
I told him I couldn’t go and put down the phone. Then I turned
around and said to Ma, “Why can’t I go?”
She said, “He’s too old for you.”
I shot back, “Well, I’m not going to marry him! I’m just going to go
to the show.”
Man, she gave me a whack and I never asked again!
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Tell them about the time you got kicked out of school and
she had to go up and get you back in.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - A bunch of us including Mary Lou went driving all over
instead of going to school one day. We got back just in time to get
our ride home. Well, somebody saw us leave in the morning and
tattled to the principal. So, in the meantime, before we got home,
they had called to tell Ma.
When we got home, she was at the front door and said, “How come your
face is so red?”
I said, “It was hot.”
She replied, “Hot where? In school? You weren’t in school! Professor
Ayris called.”
I said, “Well, everybody skips once in a while.”
The teacher said we couldn’t come back to school unless our parents
came with us. So, Ma and Lou came up with us.
Well I had skipped before one time to go to Tecumseh so I had to
tell her, “Remember that other time when I was sick and didn’t go to
school?”
Those two days I skipped were the only two days I missed in four
years of high school.
Mary Lou, your mother brought this up at a birthday party one time.
She said, “Yes, I remember that. I told Mary Lou that if she ever
did that again, she wasn’t going back to school! She could do
housework.”
In the end, they let us back in and we didn’t even have to make up
our tests or anything. We got our same A’s so it didn’t mean
anything in the end.
It’s funny that you don’t remember all the days you went to school,
but you do remember the days you skipped.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - We went to Cleary College one day with our class. There were
about 5 or 6 of us in our car. When the rest of them went back to
Dundee to school, well, we didn’t follow.
We just rode around all day. We stopped and had some pop and stuff
and just had a big time. Just like you, we got back just in time to
catch our ride home.
Next morning, we got called down to the office. The principal told
us to all to meet down by the huge French doors in the front of the
school.
When we got there, they had glass cleaner and rags for us. We spent
the next several hours washing those windows. I never washed so many
windows in my life!
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We would have gladly washed windows in exchange for not
telling our parents.
I thought Pa would have a fit and make me stay home from school when
he heard about it. All he did was start calling me, “Skippy!” |
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 Ralph Heiden - My generation has some memories of our grandparents but,
like I said in the letter, Grandpa was 74 when I was born so there
is a lot of his life I do not remember.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - He was 52 and Ma was 49 when I was born! I don’t remember Ma
and Pa without grey hair.
Pat (Bicking) Klass - I remember Grandpa more than Grandma. We were up to their
house to play more than anything.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - The kids weren’t up there to talk with their grandparents.
Ralph Heiden - What illnesses did Grandma have toward the end of her life?
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I think it was mostly her heart.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Her death certificate calls it arteriosclerosis. Hardening
of the arteries.
Ralph Heiden - I vaguely remember something about a lung problems.
Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Yes, she had bronchitis.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Her one lung was almost completely calcified.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Seems like she would get pneumonia about every year.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - They had to put a tube in her lung once to draw out fluids.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I took her to Ann Arbor one time and they came out and said,
“Your mother has one lung completely calcified and the other one is
starting to go. I would say your mother has about 6 months to live.”
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Ralph Heiden - When was that?
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - It was about 15 years before she died!
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I took her to a Toledo heart clinic. When he got done
examining her, he called me in the office. He showed me an EKG and
it had a real thin little line. He said, “Now that string, if that
breaks, she is gone. So don’t let her do much work.”
After that, she would lie on the davenport a lot and avoid the heavy
work.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - She would get awfully tired so easy.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Sometimes she would want to bake cookies but she would get
them started and then be too tired to finish them. But that was 15
or 20 years before she died.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - She evidently had pleurisy or something and every year she
would get a cold. And it seemed like her lungs never cleared up.
That calcified in there.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Remember they tapped her side and put a tube in to drain off
that excess.
Ralph Heiden - I had a similar problem when I was 18. My lung collapsed and
I had to have a tube inserted to drain off the excess fluids.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I can remember that Dr. Marin would come over when she had
the colds. He would start her off on sulfa drugs. Then a brown spot
she had on her face would turn a bright red. Then he would switch to
something else. Then he would switch to terramycin and finally clear
it up. I asked him why he always started with something else before
switching to terramycin which always worked. Why not start right out
with terramycin? He said, “Well, I always start with the weaker stuff before moving
up to the more powerful drugs.” |
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Ralph Heiden - One of the things a lot of people have mentioned is
Grandma’s cooking.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - At least three times a week, she would bake bread.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - She made the best sugar cookies!
Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - One time Art went over to their house and he came back and
said, “Ma’s making bread today. Don’t you think you should go and
help her?” I knew that he just wanted me to go and learn how to make bread like
she did. So, I said, “With all the experience she’s had, I don’t
think she needs my help!” Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - She would make donuts too. The ones I liked best where when
she would make those long stick, long-johns and frost them.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - A lot of the relatives from Toledo like the
"#I’ve also got the cedar chest that Ma’s mother brought over from
Germany. Ma used it as a hope chest.
Laas ’ and
Berlin’s would come on Sunday night just in time for dinner.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Always!
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - They would come about 4 or 5 p.m. Ma would send us down in
the basement to get some more jars of preserved beef. Boy, that made
the best gravy! Or, she would make some pork sausages and fried
potatoes.
Ralph Heiden - You wonder now about how people make such a big deal out of
eating a pat of butter or having an occasional egg for breakfast
when back then, they ate the fattest meats and sausages.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Ma would save the grease from bacon. Then when you fried
potatoes you would use that grease.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Sometimes they would put that old lard directly onto bread
and eat it like a sandwich! And we worry about eating a little bit
of butter.
Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Art always talked about taking lard sandwiches to school.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I can remember coming home from school and taking a piece of
fresh bread and putting the bacon grease on it for a snack. Pa used to eat mettwurst and eggs and spicanse for breakfast.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - I can remember him cutting the fat off pork and eating
it. It would make us kids almost sick. |
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Ralph Heiden - I asked people to write down a little remembrance of Grandpa
and Grandma and those have turned out to be really nice.
Brick Tommelein - Here, one of our kids says that Grandpa used to reward him
with a little sip of beer.
Marie (Heiden) Tommelein - Pa always knew all of his grandchildren by name. When you
think of it, that was amazing since he had so many of them. (Note:
38 in all)
William Frank Heiden - And it’s not like today when your grandchildren are spread
all over and you don’t get to see them very often. Back then, they
got to see them all the time.
It’s hard sometimes to keep track of them especially with the names
they come up with now. You don’t see many Johns or Bills.
Marie (Heiden) Tommelein - Tell me about it!
Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - My grandchildren go from A to Z.
Adam to
Zachary.
Helen (Henning) Heiden - Tom and Janice’s last grandchild is named
Peyton.
Marie (Heiden) Tommelein - Our neighbor’s have a little girl they named Montgomery
Alicia! That poor kid when she goes to school. She has a long life
ahead of her. (Note: To see the
complete Family Remembrances section which was included in
the 1995 Heiden Family book, Click Here.) |
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I’ve also got the cedar chest that Ma’s mother brought over from
Germany. Ma used it as a hope chest.
Ralph Heiden - Did Grandma and Grandpa (William C. and Mary) do much with their
brothers and sisters?
 Helma (Heiden) Nickel -
Uncle John and Aunt Agnes and them did a lot together. Agnes
was a big help to Ma. They would do a lot of sewing together.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - They would cut down coats the older ones so they would fit
the younger ones in the family.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel -
Uncle John Kosters would come down a lot too. They would go
to church and then come over to the house for dinner.
Ralph Heiden - Did they speak German to each other?
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Sometimes when they were saying something they did not want
the kids to hear! Then they would laugh loudly, “Ha, ha, ha!.” We
always wondered what they had said.
 Helma (Heiden) Nickel - They did not go back and forth too much with
Uncle
Ernest and Aunt Annie. I don’t remember Uncle Ernest’s family coming
to church very often either.
Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Someone who would remember would be
Marv Koster
(right). He
remembers a lot and you need to get together with him, Ralph.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel -
Lena (Koster) was the only girl in Pa’s family.
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 Ralph Heiden - Grandpa
(William C.) Heiden bought this farm in 1909 or there about.
There are stories about great grandpa
(August) Heiden doing the masonry work
on the house. Do you know anything about that?[Note:
Wm Carl Heiden bought the farm on April 1, 1909 which was his 35th
birthday.]
William Frank Heiden - I heard them talking about walking over here from South
Custer when Pa was about 13 or 14 to help his dad do the brick work.
[Note: August Heiden was a
brick mason by trade.]
Ralph Heiden - Then that would have been about 1890. So that was when
someone else owned it?
(Note:
Which would have been while the Meyers
still owned the property.)
William Frank Heiden - Yes, I think it was the Langs or someone else who owned
the farm at that time.
Ralph Heiden - The 1873 county plat book I think lists the owner of this
farm as a man named Meyers.
William Frank Heiden - They called him “Milky Meyers.” I always heard Pa talking
about him.
Ralph Heiden - The plat map also showed a piece of landlocked property
located on the back of this property. There wasn’t any access from
Ida-Maybee Road, Dixon, Mulheisen or South Custer.
William Frank Heiden - That would be on the back end of Suhciks farm. It was the
Stokes that had an old house back in there on a hill. Could be some
relation to Bill Stokes, Aunt Emma’s’s relations.
Ralph Heiden - There also used to be a house on the north side of the road
just east of here. I know Mary Lou was born there and Carl and Anita
lived there for a while too.
William Frank Heiden - Carl lived next door here where Jessie Barnes lived.
Verdell was born there.
Edna and Henry lived in the other place for a while and
Bill and
Alice (Brossia) Heiden lived there too. Bill worked the farm. That was when
old Jesse Wakefield owned it. |
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Ralph Heiden - Who built the house at
8861 Dixon Road which became the
family homestead?
 Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Grandpa Heiden (August) was a mason and he built on the
dining room and kitchen after Pa bought it. Before moving there,
they lived down on South Custer Road at the Abby Place and the
Albright place.
Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Abby’s was right on the corner where Dixon Road and South
Custer come together.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel -
Edna and
Carl and
Leo went to school down there at the King
School. They rented those houses before moving to Dixon Road.
Ralph Heiden - Did Lee and Lu live where Jesse Barnes lived?
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - No I don’t think so. Carl lived there. I don’t think Mary
Lou lived there.
Ralph Heiden - What about the doctor? Did he make rounds and stop by the
farm periodically?
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I remember Dr. Kelly. You had to call him to come out. He
didn’t come to our house very often.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Pa would get those kidney stones. He would just lay over the
couch in such misery. The doctor would come and give him a shot. He
would just be sick the next day and lay around. |
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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.
I’ve also got the cedar chest that Ma’s mother brought over from
Germany. Ma used it as a hope chest.
Ralph Heiden - What did the family do on the farm during a typical year?
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - In the fall, Pa would tell us that when we got home from
school we would have to help pick up the potatoes he would dig that
day. In the spring, we would go out and pull the wild mustard out of
the wheat fields.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - In one bedroom upstairs we had some red material, it wasn’t
carpet, on the floor that was put down with little tacks. They had a
special tool to take up all the tacks. Then you took it out in the
yard and “beat the daylight” out of it with a carpet beater. After
it aired out a bit, you took it back upstairs and tacked it down
again.
Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - We used to have those rugs made in strips and sow them all
together. We would take them all apart and then sow them back
together after they were cleaned.
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Ralph Heiden - Many people mentioned the Christmas Eve’s at Grandma and
Grandpa’s house. What do you remember about those parties?
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - After church everybody would come over and people would be
all over the house, sitting in the bedrooms and everywhere. There
were so many people in the house all at once on that night!
 Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - I used to wonder why Grandma
(right holding Bruce Eipperle) would set quietly in the
background during those parties. Well, after I had all my children
and grandchildren home at once, I could begin to understand. It gets
so hectic.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - It got to be too much. Pa went down to the basement one time
and put an extra brace under the floor because he was afraid that so
many people being there at once would collapse the floor.
 Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - The men used to try to play cards out in the dining room and
the kids would race around the whole house. They would tear around
that table. You could just see Pa get frustrated but he never said
anything.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - I remember Helen saying that the next morning she would
find half-eaten sandwiches down beneath the furniture.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - There would be food everywhere and wrapping paper wadded all
over the place.
Christmas Day was never anything special for us. People would go to
the other side of their families for visits. We would be all by
ourselves, cleaning up the mess and returning chairs we borrowed
from the church.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - I remember Grandpa got plenty of shirts, pipes and
tobacco for presents at Christmas.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Ma would sit there in the living room and unwrap her gifts.
She and Pa both got a present from everybody who came. The children
all drew names and then got a present from whoever picked their
name. Sometimes your godparent gave you a present too.
We were lucky, we got an orange and some candy from church.
Hilda
and Carl
stood up for me so they would each give me a present and
that was about it.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I had seven godchildren to buy presents for each year. Five
girls and two boys.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I remember one time Ma and Pa gave me a harmonica for
Christmas.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - When we were young, we would usually get something like a
sled or a wagon for all the brothers and sisters to use.
 Ralph Heiden - Everyone would go to the service at
St
Matthew Lutheran Church on Christmas Eve. The kids were part of a Christmas pageant
play. What do you remember about those?
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Yeah, my heart was always beating like crazy before we had
to stand up in front of everyone and speak our lines. I was so
scared to do that sometimes.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I remember when they had the real candles on the tree in the
church. Carl Miller stood nearby with a fishing pole that had a wet
sponge attached to it. He was supposed to put the candles out when
they burned down close to the tree.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - We used to have candles on the tree at home too but Pa would
never allow us to light them.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Pa was always concerned about fires in the house. |
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Ralph Heiden - Was the house nice and warm in the winters?
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Ho, ho, ho! Upstairs where we slept, if you left a glass of
water out overnight, it would be frozen in the morning!
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - That’s why we often slept three to a bed.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Those ceilings would slope down near the bed. You could
reach up some nights and scratch the frost off the inside surface.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We had a big furnace in the basement that burned coal.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Then there was one little register or actually just a hole
in the floor where the heat was supposed to come up through from
below.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - You didn’t fool around getting dressed in the morning.
Sometimes we would run downstairs by the radiator and get dressed
there.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - I remember sitting on that old pot and it would be ice
cold.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - You didn’t know if you could go or not!
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Those were the good old days.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - But we didn’t know any different. Everybody we knew lived
the same way so it was all right.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I went to the dentist one time recently and I asked him what
kind of toothpaste he would recommend? He asked, “What did you use
when you were young?” I said we used backing soda or salt. I told
him we lived on a farm and that’s what we had. |
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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. |
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 Ralph Heiden - Did any of you get to go to the dentist when you were young?
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - We went to Dr. Benham in Dundee.
Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Boy, did we! He would be working on you and the farther
you would slouch down in the seat, the harder he’d come after you!
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I don’t ever remember going to the dentist when I was young.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - No, we didn’t go for the regular check ups or cleaning like
they do now. We went if you had a toothache and needed a tooth
pulled.
Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Ronnie is now going to Benham’s grandson who is a dentist
too over in Petersburg. |
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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.”
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Ralph Heiden - Now, on this farm, Grandpa owned all the land on the north
side of the road to the river too? Did he sell off the parcels where
the other houses are now?
 William Frank Heiden - Leo was the first one to buy a three acre lot from Dixon
Road back to the river. His was the one right next to Jesse Barnes’
place. Then he sold three acres to Wally Grams. The last lot went to
Paul Goetz.
Ralph Heiden - I remember Jerry and Anabel from Toledo who had a small
place there where they came out on weekends.
William Frank Heiden - Those were the Feebacks. They bought the lot from Leo.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - I think they sold the lot when they bought the house on
South Custer where Mother lives now.
Brick Tommelein - When
Leo bought it, were they going to live there? Wonder
why they never did.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - They had intentions of building. I can remember them
looking at books and books of house plans but they never did build.
Probably because they had a chance to buy the home on South Custer.
William Frank Heiden - I think Pa sold all those lots for $1500 each.
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 Ralph Heiden - There are trees planted in even spacing
along the river bank, didn’t Grandpa plant those?
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Pa planted those but I don’t
know when.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - You say they bought the
house in 1909? I thought Great Grandpa built the house.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Pa bought the place from
Meyers.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Stella Graf’s grandma and
grandma built that house.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I forget what Pa said they
had to pay for the farm. I think it was about $75 per acre or
something. It was 140 acres.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - It is 141 acres. They always
had to go down to Stella’s folks, the Langs, to pay the mortgage
payments.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - They must have bought it on
land contract then or they wouldn’t have had to pay the Langs.
Afterwards, they got a loan from Monroe County Bank. I was still
in high school when they finally paid it off. That would have
been in the early 1940's, maybe 1941 or so.
Sometimes they would have to
borrow money to pay the taxes. Fortunately, Gilbert Oyer at the
bank knew all those farmers and he knew they were good for it.
He’d loan them the money for the taxes but then they would not
be getting any of the principal down on the loan that year.
Ralph Heiden - I have some
old property tax receipts that my great grandfather,
August Heiden, paid from the late 1800's to about 1911.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Where did they live
then?
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Over on South Custer where
Uncle John and Aunt
Agnes
(Brockman) Heiden
lived.
Ralph Heiden - The property tax form says that
August Heiden's
property on South Custer Road was bordered on the north by Jacob
Mathis, on the east by George Rath and William D. Miller, and on
the west by Ernst "Ernest" Heiden. In some of the older
receipts, it says they were bordered on the north by W. Stock,
on east by C. Rath and on the west by K. Opfermann.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - K. Opfermann?
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Killian Opfermann would be
Frank’s dad.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Did William F. and Helen
ever have a survey done on the home farm?
Ralph Heiden - Yes, they wrote in their letter that
they have a copy of the title search.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - That’s what I do for a
living. I’ve been doing it since April 3, 1946 and worked until
April 30, 1989. Now I work part-time at it.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - We’ll have to have a big
party next year to celebrate Jeanie working 50 years. |
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Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Whatever happened to the woods that were on the back side of
the farm?
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - As far as I know they’re still there.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Pa used to go back there and get morel mushrooms and
blackberries.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Those mushrooms were great! He used to get only 7 or 8 of
them so each of us would get half of one fried up in butter.
Ralph Heiden - People always mention that Grandpa liked to fish with a cane
pole back on the river. What did he catch?
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Carp! Rock bass, pike and suckers.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - He tried to smoke some carp one time but it didn’t work out
very well. Bill Cominess told him if you catch a carp, you should
dig a hole in the yard to plant a tree and then bury the carp with
it. Then, eat the horse manure you were going to use for fertilizer
instead. You’d be better off in the long run!
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I got some pictures of Bill and Pa playing cards together.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Remember old Charley Cominess when he had that small
house trailer he lived in?
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Yes, that was how we got fleas one time! Pa went over there
and gave him a hair cut with our clippers. Then he came home and
gave some of us a trimming and boy what a time we had getting rid of
those things in our hair! |
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 Ralph Heiden -
There is an old story about the Heiden farmstead being located
on an “Indian burial ground.”
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Back where the old hickory
tree was near the lane was supposed to be an Indian burial
ground according to Pa. It was before you got to the ditch. They
used to find a lot of arrowheads and things there all the time.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I wonder why nobody ever
keeps that stuff.
Ralph Heiden - Carol said she used to have a bunch of
arrowheads and things but she has lost track of where they are
now. |
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Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - On Easter Sunday, he would eat six boiled eggs for
breakfast. That was his traditional meal.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - During Lent, we could never go to a dance or to the movies
back then.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - You never got married during Lent either. There were a lot
of February weddings because you had to get married before or after
Lent.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Unless it was a shotgun wedding!
Ralph Heiden - Did the preachers used to come over to the house often?
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - That one preacher we had liked to play horseshoes.
Bidlesbocker was his name. He was the one who baptized me.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Pastor Thomas used to come over after Ma had died. He would
sit there while we were playing cards and he’d say, “I thought you’d
have a Budweiser out by now.” So, we would go and get him one and
he’d have it with us.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Every so often, you were expected to have the preacher over
for a meal because they didn’t get much pay.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - If you dug potatoes or had vegetables, you would drop some
off at the parsonage to help them out too.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - The parsonage was there on Ida-Maybee Road across from
Seibarth’s. We used to go there for Catechism lessons before we were
confirmed.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - We had to sit in the living room and take the lessons. It
was another “quiet” house. |
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Helma - Here is a book that the preacher must have given Ma and Pa
on the day they were married. It is all in German and that is all
that I could make of it. That would have been in 1897 when they were
married. It really should be with the Heiden History.
(Note: The inside panel of the book reads:
Die Gebetsschule oder Die Herzen in die Hoehe! Das Gebet im
allgemeinen und das Vaterunser im besonderen erklaert durch
Gedanken, Sinnbilder und Dergleichen.
Sonntagsschulen und der Familie dargeboten.
This translates into:
“The school of prayers or High up the hearts! The prayer in general
and the Lord's prayer especially explained through thoughts, and
allegories. Presented to Sunday Schools and to the family.”)
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Ralph Heiden - How many of the 13 kids
were around the house at the same time during those early years?
  Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - When I was born, I already had nephews.
Walter (left) and
Lavern Berns (right) were born before I was.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - She was an Aunt when she was born.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden -
Bob was born in May after I was born in
April.
Lila and Ma were pregnant at the same time.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel -
Hilda,
Mildred and
Leo all got married in
1928. Jeanie was born in 1927.
Mildred - That’s
the way with Gail. She really never considered Harold as a
brother because he was married and out of the house long before
she was born. |
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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,
