On an 1890 plat map, August Heiden is shown owning two plots of land on South Custer Road. One was land only and on the east side of the intersection of S.Custer and Ida Maybee Road and Lewis Avenue. He and his wife Rika lived in the house shown above which was a short distance west of the intersection. After his death in 1922, August's youngest son, John Heiden became the owner. John died in 1959 but his wife, Agnes stayed on until her death in 1981.

The Heiden Family Reunion was held here in 1928, and 1933.

In 1972, for some long forgotten reason, I became interested in learning about the family and its history. My mother, Mildred, and I went over to visit my great aunt (and she was a great person too!), Agnes, in this house. After talking for a few minutes, she said she might have something of interest. She went into another room and emerged with a reddish, wooden box. Inside it were German documents related to the emigration of her father-in-law, August Heiden. There were letters from Germany from the 1920s and many other documents. All of these items are on this website in digital form.

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!

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