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.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I have the 100th Anniversary Book for Bridge School if you would like to see it sometime, Ralph.

Ralph Heiden - When you reached the end of the eighth grade, then what?

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - People back then always thought that 8th grade was enough schooling for anyone.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - You didn’t have to go on to high school in those days. I was the first one in our family to go.

Harrison Dentel came to the house when I finished the 8th grade. He said, “She’s only twelve years old. What is she going to do here at home? She should go on to high school.” Pa didn’t like the idea at all.

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Art wanted to go on to high school so bad too. But when he was in 8th grade, they wouldn’t even let him go to Ida to take the entrance exam.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - They thought going to high school was foolishness. But finally, Harrison Dental talked and talked to them about Wilma and they gave in.

Then, when my time came several years later, I had to beg and beg. Pa said, “All Wilma learned up there was foolishness. Going to parties and such foolishness.” But, they finally gave in and I got to go.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I was in the class play my junior and senior years. Elizabeth Johnson lived across the river and she would come to pick me up to take me to practice. When it was time for the play, they asked if my mother and dad were coming. I had to say, “No.” I wouldn’t have thought about asking them. Pa would have thought that it was really a lot of nonsense.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Back when I would have gone, you would have had to pay tuition to go to high school. The pastor’s kids were going to go and I could have gone with them but I would have had to walk to the parsonage to catch the ride every day.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Our road was mud at that time and we often had to walk to the corner to get a ride somewhere. You could usually get down to where Henry and Edna lived.

When I started working at River Raisin Paper, I rode with John Beaudrie and I had to meet him down at the corner at 6:30 every morning.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I remember one Christmas Eve, everybody who came over for the party got stuck on the road. They had to get the tractor out and pull everybody out of the mud.

Ralph Heiden - Did you get snowed in very often back then?

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Oh, I can remember walking down the ditches that were full of snow.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - We would still walk to the Bridge School no matter how deep the snow was then. It used to get a crust on top and it would be up as high as the fence posts. We would walk across that and have a lot of fun. There were always a bunch of us on the way to and from school each day.