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Ralph Heiden - What kind of farm did Grandma and Grandpa (William Carl and Mary Heiden) have while you
were growing up?
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We raised pigs to butcher.
 Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Ma raised geese. She made us all a feather bed from the
down.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I got flogged by a goose once. Believe me, they could hurt
you!
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Aunts and Uncles would get together pull out the down and
put them in bags and dry them for mattresses. Feather beds.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Remember how we used to be afraid to get the eggs out from
under the old setting hens? They’d pick you on the hands if you
reached in for the eggs.
 Pat (Bicking) Klass - We would throw corncobs at them to get them off the nest. Aunt Helen (right) would say, “What’s the matter with you?” and reach in and pull
them out with her hand.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - We would take a stick and hold their head down and then
reach in to take the eggs from the nest.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - They were old setting hens and they did not want to get off
the nest. There were always a few that just wouldn’t get off the
nest for you.
Pat (Bicking) Klass - We would beg Helen to let us help get the eggs. Then the next
day, she would wonder what all those corncobs were doing in the
nests.
 Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - You always had a nasty rooster out there too that would come
after you. You’d be scared stiff.
I remember Ma would kill the chickens. She hold them down and take
the ax and cut off the heads and then dunk them in hot water. Then
she’d pick the feathers off them and we’d have to pull out those
darn pinfeathers. She’d cut them all up and soak them in some sort of saltwater over
night. The next morning, boy, that would make the best chicken! They
don’t taste like that now.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - My dad (Leo
Heiden) used to cut the heads off like that on Saturday.
Then he’d let them run around and us kids would laugh. Then he’d dip
them in hot water and come in and dump them on the table. That was
the end of his part. It was Mother’s job from then on.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - When we first got married, Bill noticed that William and
Helen always had chickens in the freezer. He said, “Why don’t we put
some chickens in our freezer too?”
I said, “Oh, I don’t know about that.”
 William (Wm Frank right) asked Bill, “You want some chickens? Come on out next week.
I’ve got some and you can have them.”
So we went out there. William started to cut off the heads and stuck
them into a sleeve thing that held them while they bled out. And the
chickens were bleeding and squirming around.
Before long, William turned around and said, “Where’s Bill?”
 Bill (Bicking left) had disappeared around the corner of the shed. We went around
to find him and he said, “My God, I’ll never eat another chicken in
my life!”
He never talked about putting chickens in the freezer after that. Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - That’s the city kid in him.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - That smell when you put them in the hot water was enough
to put anyone off chicken.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Talking about chickens. They have those Amish chickens every
once in a while at the store and they taste like real chickens like
we used to have on the farm.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - I bet they’re corn fed. And they let them run in the
field too.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I haven’t been able to find them since. They don’t have any
chemicals and stuff fed to them.
Pat (Bicking) Klass - It’s amazing we eat anything anymore.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Ma would take the chickens in the house and light a rolled
up newspaper and singe off the remaining feathers.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We had guinea hens too.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - They were like watchdogs. They would start to “holler” and
make loud noises that would chase animals away.
 Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - The best time was when Pa would kill a pig. We would have
fresh liver that night. Boy that was fresh and delicious! They would
slice it real thin and they would make that dark, black gravy. Wilma
never liked it but I loved that dark gravy!
I tried buying liver at Baisley’s and I brought it home but it was
nothing like what we used to have when we lived on the farm. Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I would just hate it when I knew they were going to butcher
because I would come home and they would have liver for supper.
That is the only time I can remember that Ma bent her rules.
Normally, we were expected to eat whatever was put on the table.
But, I hated liver so much and almost got sick so finally she said,
“Oh, all right, I’ll fry you an egg and don’t act so foolish.” Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Art used to talk about catching the blood from the pigs as
they butchered them. They would make blood cheese and sausage.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - That was something I could never eat. I don’t remember them
making it very much.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - We were talking the other day about “souse” (spelling?) and
head cheese and those things.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - They also made that apple stuff with the cracklings and
things when they butchered.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - That was from frying out the lard. They mixed that with
apples.
 Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Pa always made the mettwurst out in the smokehouse.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Boy, that is one thing that you cannot buy. Not that tastes
like that did. Carl was the last one who could make it taste like
that.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Remember all the wine and cider barrels in the basement?
They’d tell us to go down and siphon off some of the wine with a
hose once in a while.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - I can still smell that wine down there. Remember when we
got drunk that time?
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We siphoned off too much. They were playing cards and they
told us to go down and get a pitcher of wine. We would just empty
off all the glasses before refilling them. Pretty soon we were.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Remember how mad they got?
Ralph Heiden - Was everything you used at home mostly homemade?
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Everything. I don’t ever remember buying any canned goods
back then.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - We used to have a grocery wagon come by every Monday. A guy
named Jake Myers traveled around from his store in Strasburg (Michigan).
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - He had a big truck that he would drive around the
countryside selling his goods.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Ma would go out to the road when he would come by with a
basket of eggs and trade them for groceries.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I remember peaking over the edge of the truck and looking at
the box of candies. I don’t know what you would get for a basket of
eggs. Maybe some summer sausage. Ma and Pa would go to town, to Monroe, once in a while and come home
with link balogneys in buns with mustard on them.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - That would be our Saturday night supper.
Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Art used to say, “Give me a tase of one of them der buns.”
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Pa went to the mill with the wheat to get flour.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - He would trade bags of wheat for bags of flour.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Then he went to Heck’s Market right across the street.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I think it’s Schroeder’s now.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Pa would also buy peanuts. Peanuts in the shell which he
just loved.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - That must be where my Dad (Leo Heiden) got his love for peanuts in the
shell too. |
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 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 thunderstorm.
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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
(8420
Dixon Road). 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.  Helma (Heiden) Nickel -
Carl,
Leo and
Lester (left) were working at other farms much of the
time while I was growing up.
Hilda
(Fuller) and
Mildred
(Eipperle) worked in Monroe and
stayed at Uncle Fred Rambow’s during the week. They would come home
on weekends. We all had our chores around home. I don’t ever remember Ma washing
the dishes. We all did our share of ironing too.
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 Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I only went to the Bridge School for seven years. When I
started there,
Harrison Dentel was the teacher. All the classes were
together in the same room. I was the only one in the first grade so
he moved me up with the second graders. So, when it came to the end
of the year, he passed me on to the third grade. So I kept going and
graduated from the eighth grade when I was thirteen.
Ralph Heiden - The Heidens overall seem like a pretty sharp bunch of
people. I haven’t found too many who are down and out.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Wilma was third in her high school class.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Jeanie was Salutatorian of hers.
 Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Yeah, I had to work real hard to beat Wilma. Then, when I
had to give the speech at graduation, I was wishing I had been
third.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Professor Ayris said he thought I should have gotten
Salutatorian because the girl who got it had transferred in from
another school. He said that the records from that school said that
she had gotten all A’s and there was nothing he could do about. He
wanted to make me class Historian so I could give a speech too but I
said, “No thank you!”
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - When Wilma was in the fourth grade, she won the county
spelling bee against everyone, even the eighth graders and won all
those medals.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I remember the day of an assembly in Monroe High School
auditorium when they asked, “Is Wilma Heiden in the audience?” I
stood up and they started clapping but the announcer said, “Where is
she? I can’t see her.” Finally, I had to get up on my chair and
everybody started cheering.
 Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Harrison Dentel
(left) wanted me to get into the spelling bee
because Wilma had won it but I was too bashful for that stuff.
Ralph Heiden - A lot of the Heidens went to Bridge School. It went from
kindergarten to eighth grade. How many students would there be at
the school in the average year?
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Oh, about fifty or sixty. Harrison Dental would be the only
teacher.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We were all in the same room together. Everybody would be
sitting at their desks and he would call up one class at a time to
work on their lessons.
That used to help the younger ones, I think. We would sit back there
and, when we were in the second grade, we would get done with our
work and then listen to the third grade go through their lesson. By
the time you got there the next year, you pretty well knew most of
it already.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - By the time we got to the seventh or eighth grade, we
would be allowed to help with the first graders and teach them.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I can still remember that old Regulator clock on the wall.
It made a loud “Tick! Tick! Tick” sound!
 Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - The teacher had a length of rubber hose in his desk. And,
boy, he would use it too!
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - He would be teaching another class up front in the room but,
if you turned around to talk to someone, he would spot you. All of a
sudden, “Whop!”, he would snap you behind the head with the hose.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - He wore those big, black high top shoes and he would walk on
the balls of his feet.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - He always tiptoed around.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We always called him, “Tippy toes!”
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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
(left) & Norma "Jeanie" Heiden (right) -
(start singing together)
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.
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.
There would be
Walter
(left) and
Lavern Berns,
(right) Lloyd Rath, Junior
Barnaby and Harry Karney. There would be a whole gang of us. I
remember hitting Junior Barnaby over the head with my lunch
bucket. He fell down and I thought I really hurt him but he was
O.K.
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 Ralph Heiden - Was the house nice and warm in the winters?
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Ho, ho, ho! Upstairs where we slept, if you left a glass of
water out overnight, it would be frozen in the morning!
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - That’s why we often slept three to a bed.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Those ceilings would slope down near the bed. You could
reach up some nights and scratch the frost off the inside surface.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We had a big furnace in the basement that burned coal.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Then there was one little register or actually just a hole
in the floor where the heat was supposed to come up through from
below.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - You didn’t fool around getting dressed in the morning.
Sometimes we would run downstairs by the radiator and get dressed
there.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - I remember sitting on that old pot and it would be ice
cold.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - You didn’t know if you could go or not!
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Those were the good old days.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - But we didn’t know any different. Everybody we knew lived
the same way so it was all right.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I went to the dentist one time recently and I asked him what
kind of toothpaste he would recommend? He asked, “What did you use
when you were young?” I said we used backing soda or salt. I told
him we lived on a farm and that’s what we had. |
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 Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann -
Norma Miller remembered that Grandma Rambow
(right) 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.  William and Minne Rambow were Mary (Rambow) Heiden and Fredarecka 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 Lu (Lucille Heiden, mother of Mary Lou Opfermann) (right) 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.
Lu 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 (Heiden) Opfermann - 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 (right) would get the
Bible and hand it to Aunt Minnie (left). 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.
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August Heiden and family came to America in 1873 and Heinrich Rambow came in 1874. They were from the same small village in Germany, Gross Wokern. Wilhelmina Rambow's maiden name was a Milhan.
 The picture is of a typical 19th century German settee but, unfortunately, it is not the actual one referenced above. |
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 Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Pa was pretty lenient about that kind of thing. Ma wasn’t so
easy going. When she said, “No.” she meant it and there would be no
arguing with her. You never asked, “Why not?”
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I did once. Joe Long called and asked if I could go to the
show with him. He was older than I was and I was about 15 or 16 at
the time. I was on the phone with him and turned around to ask Ma if
I could go to the show that night.
She said, “Who with?”
I said, “Joe Long.”
She said, “No.”
I told him I couldn’t go and put down the phone. Then I turned
around and said to Ma, “Why can’t I go?”
She said, “He’s too old for you.”
I shot back, “Well, I’m not going to marry him! I’m just going to go
to the show.”
Man, she gave me a whack and I never asked again!
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Tell them about the time you got kicked out of school and
she had to go up and get you back in.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - A bunch of us including Mary Lou went driving all over
instead of going to school one day. We got back just in time to get
our ride home. Well, somebody saw us leave in the morning and
tattled to the principal. So, in the meantime, before we got home,
they had called to tell Ma. When we got home, she was at the front door and said, “How come your
face is so red?”
I said, “It was hot.”
She replied, “Hot where? In school? You weren’t in school! Professor
Ayris called.”
I said, “Well, everybody skips once in a while.”
The teacher said we couldn’t come back to school unless our parents
came with us. So, Ma and Lou came up with us.
Well I had skipped before one time to go to Tecumseh so I had to
tell her, “Remember that other time when I was sick and didn’t go to
school?”
Those two days I skipped were the only two days I missed in four
years of high school.
Mary Lou, your mother brought this up at a birthday party one time.
She said, “Yes, I remember that. I told Mary Lou that if she ever
did that again, she wasn’t going back to school! She could do
housework.”
In the end, they let us back in and we didn’t even have to make up
our tests or anything. We got our same A’s so it didn’t mean
anything in the end.
It’s funny that you don’t remember all the days you went to school,
but you do remember the days you skipped.
 Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - We went to Cleary College one day with our class. There were
about 5 or 6 of us in our car. When the rest of them went back to
Dundee to school, well, we didn’t follow.
We just rode around all day. We stopped and had some pop and stuff
and just had a big time. Just like you, we got back just in time to
catch our ride home.
Next morning, we got called down to the office. The principal told
us to all to meet down by the huge French doors in the front of the
school.
When we got there, they had glass cleaner and rags for us. We spent
the next several hours washing those windows. I never washed so many
windows in my life!
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We would have gladly washed windows in exchange for not
telling our parents.
I thought Pa would have a fit and make me stay home from school when
he heard about it. All he did was start calling me, “Skippy!”
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 Over
the years, we have also received written memories and
remembrances about this person or topic from various family
members. |
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Wilma, Jeanie, Wm Frank, Helma & Marie were
children of 
