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 - 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.

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Ask Ralph why he liked to work for Herb bailing hay and straw in the summers.

Ralph Heiden - For Helma’s great meals! She would put out a wonderful spread every day at noon when we would come in from the field.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Helma was the best cook!

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - She taught me how to clean house.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I stayed with her one summer when Larry was little. She taught me how to cook and how to make good gravy.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Well, I learned how to cook and clean at home. I used to help Ma a lot. Of course, when Jeanie was born, I was 17 years old and I was practically her mother. Ma had a heart problem by then and had to take it easier. That’s the reason Jeanie was the only one of the thirteen kids that was born in the hospital. She was six weeks early and Ma was weak afterwards for a while. Jeanie was delivered by Dr. Douglas in St. Vincent’s Hospital in Toledo.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Is that what she had, I thought it had something to do with her kidneys.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - No, it was her heart. 

Ralph Heiden - What kind of activities did they have at Bridge School. Did they have plays or recitals?

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I was in a play one time. I got up and said, “We will now sing Fiddely Dee for YOU!” During practices, the teacher would always tell me to emphasize the “you” at the end.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking & Norma "Jeanie" Heiden -

Fiddley Dee
Fiddley Dee
The fly has married the bumble bee.
The fly to the bee
Will you marry me?
And live with me,
Sweet bumble bee.
Fiddley Dee
Fiddley Dee

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Boy, you’re memory is still good to remember all that stuff!

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - And then we’d sing The Old Grandfather’s Clock.

(Everyone singing together) -

“And it stopped short,
Never to go again.
When the old man died.”

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - We had parent-teachers meetings way back then too. I remember I was in the second grade and we all had to get up and say a nursery rhyme. I played the part of Jack Sprat in the rhyme about Jack Sprat could eat no fat. That is when Leo gave me the nickname, Jack. He had a nickname for everyone.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - So that’s where that came from, I remember him calling you Jack.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We always had music at school. Harrison Dentel played the piano and we had the old Golden Song Books.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I still have a copy that we bought at a yard sale. We used to sing out of that every morning at Bridge School.  

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 - 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.