Around 1890, August Heiden and his second oldest child, Ernst "Ernest" Heiden bought adjacent properties on what is now South Custer Road (M-50) in Raisinville Township. Ernst's house was torn down a while ago but it would have been to the east (right in the picture) of the Florist shop shown above The property is shown on the 1890 plat map lower on this page.

During the 1950s and 60s, the business was known as Hovizi's Flower Shop and was used by many of the families in the website for special occasions.

The Heiden Family Reunion was held here in the summers of 1923, 1931 and 1937.

Like a lot of pieces of family history, we do not know how August Heiden who had immigrated from Germany in 1873 was able to purchase two properties with over 90 acres of land in Michigan by 1890. He was a "mason" i.e. brick mason and a carpenter so we assume he was good at his craft and many houses at this time were built of bricks. One source said that he built the house where the Rambow family lived.

Not only did August seem to prosper but his two sons, Heinrich and Ernst, who accompanied him from Germany also bought farms during these years.

William Carl, who was born in the U.S. in 1874 purchased a small farm in the late 1890s and then bought the larger farm at 8861 Dixon Road in 1909 on his 35th birthday. In family stories, he always seemed to drive a big car and the farm house always had extra people coming back to live for a while. All this while raising 13 children!

From what we know, it appears that all of Ernst and Anna Heiden's eight children attended Fonia School. It was a typical one-room school that took students from kindergarten to the 8th grade. It is about 1.7 miles from Ernst's home to the school. Of course, the kids would have had to walk back and forth each day regardless of the weather.

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