Several different branches of the Heiden family have lived at this location spread out over many decades. The 1890 Plat book shows Heinrich Heiden and his family living at this address and owning i.e. buying, the farm. As far as we can tell, all seven of his children including, August John Heiden, Wm Leo Heiden, Elsie (Heiden) Klatt, Dorothy (Heiden) Strzesinski, Esther (Heiden) Kehrer, Henry Wm Heiden and Libbie (Heiden, Frank) Murdock were born in this house.

For a period of time, while Heinrich owned this farm, his parents, August and Rika (Knaack) Heiden and two of their children, Lena (Heiden) Koster and John Heiden lived there also.

In 1922, at the age of 55, Heinrich was working in the fields and keeled over dead from a heart attack. It appears that Emma continued to live there for several more years. In 1925, she hosted the annual Heiden Family Reunion at this farm. Sometime later, the farm was sold to Andrew Shucik who lived in the Detroit area.

Emma and her children Dorothy (Heiden) Strzesinski (23), Esther (Heiden) Kehrer (20), August John Heiden (28) and Libby Murdock (14) moved to 617 Eighth Street in Monroe where they were living at the time of the 1930 U.S. Census.

In 1951, Wm Frank and Helen (Henning) Heiden with their children, Carol, Janice, James, Dianne (Heiden) Houpt, Richard Carl and Gene moved from William's parents' house at 8861 Dixon Road to this house about 1/2 mile east. In 1954, their daughter, Cheryl was born while they lived at this farm.

In 1960, Wm bought his father, Wm Carl Heiden's farm and moved back to 8861 Dixon.

At that time, Arthur and Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden moved from their home at 8864 Dixon to this farm. Their children, Ronald (18), Ralph (12), Kay (6) and Gail (2) lived here together until Ronald moved out after his marriage in 1963.

Arthur and Mildred, Kay and Gail moved back to 8864 Dixon around 1970.

Over the decades, a total of 28 members of the Heiden Family lived in this house.

From the 1950s to at least the 1970s, the house had brown asphalt stucco type siding and looked much different from the house shown above. The picture below shows the pattern of the siding and its actual color.

When we lived here, there was still a wood or coal fired furnace in the basement. My dad would go down first thing in the morning and "stoke" the fire with more wood or coal.

Behind and on the eastern boundary of the property was a park on the river. There is a dam across the river at that point and the facility was once open for use by groups. There was a small building where you could buy refreshments but by the time we lived here in the 1960s it was no longer functioning.

In the spring when the river flooded the lowlands to the north of the house, we would sneak down to the dam at night to dip net for Northern pike.We used a 4 by 4 foot square net attached to the end of a long pole. You would lower the net into the water, wait a few minutes and then pull it up to see if you caught something. Since the fish were in spawning mode, they were always moving around and we usually caught a few each night.

The reason we went at night was because what we were doing was illegal. We had to keep an eye out for the conservation officer so we rarely used a flash light. One night, a car showed up at the gate on the driveway from the road which was perhaps 1/4 mile away from the river. We quickly folded everything up, grabbed the fish which were kept in a burlap bag in the water and hustled for the house.

Turned out it was the State Police and they came to our house to see if anyone had noticed activity on the river. We were hiding in the barn watching through cracks in the siding, scared stiff. Fortunately, they just left after talking to my mother without looking around for us and we never heard from them again. But, we kept on fishing.

On the left is the granary that was on the property at least from the 1950s. It appears to be sagging at the foundations on the date of this photograph in late 20th century.

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden going into the backdoor of the house in the late 1960s. Her grandson, Steven Heiden on the left.

The house in 2020 with white siding and many of the outbuildings long gone. It still has the metal roof which was there in the 50s and 60s.

My mother, Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden, going down into the cellar i.e. basement where you could keep potatoes stored so they would last a little longer. Firewood and coal was also stored there for the winter months.

This is the view from the River Raisin looking south to the farm. On January 10, 1997, an airplane crashed into the neighboring property just to the east (left in the picture) of the house. See below for more details.

MONROE COUNTY, Michigan (CNN) -- In frigid weather, bodies and debris from the crash of a commuter plane near Detroit were being brought to a nearby hangar on Friday. Federal investigators planned to search for the cockpit voice and flight data recorders from Comair Flight 3272 once the bodies of all 29 victims were recovered.

The pilot gave no indication that the twin-engine Embraer 120 aircraft was in trouble before it nose-dived into a rural field during a snowstorm on Thursday, splintering into thousands of pieces, Federal Aviation Administration officials said. Other Detroit flights had reported problems with ice all day.

Flight 3272 was enroute from Cincinnati when it went down just before dusk about seven miles west of Monroe and about 18 miles southwest of its destination, Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

"It nose-dived straight into the ground," eyewitness Ted Rath told CNN in a live interview Friday morning. 

(Note: At the time of the crash, Ted Rath (right) lived at 134 Ida Maybee Road a few hundred yards east of 8420 Dixon Road.)

One of Art and Mildred's grandson's, Michael Heiden, jumping from the front porch.