On May 28th and September 24th, 1995 different groups of descendents of William Carl and Mary Heiden met to share their family memories. The conversations were recorded and later written transcripts were made. Below are excerpts which relate to this person or topic..

Pictured is what was called a cassette tape back in pre-digital times.
 

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Helma, I didn’t know your middle name was Nettie.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Yes, that was after Nettie Spohr. Emma was for Aunt Emma (Stock) Heiden. They both stood up for me.

Ralph Heiden - That was the way they used to do it. Often the person was named after the people who stood up for them at baptism. If they had four witnesses, they had four names.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - They stopped that when they got down to me.

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - With your dad it should be Arthur Henry Carl (right). Carl Rathke stood up for him.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Also, Anita’s birth date should be December 3, 1900.

In Germany, the tradition was to have as many as 4 or 5 people act as godparents at the baptism. That is why my great grandfather's name is August Friedrich Anton Theodor Heiden meaning he had four men "stand up" for him. Great grandma's name was Elisabeth Sophia Wilhelmina Friedericka Knaack so four women witnessed her baptism.

For the genealogist, this brings the complication of determining which one was used as the person's common name. Great grandfather was known as August and his wife was Fredericka with the nickname Rika. There was no system as to which name was used.

I'm glad they stopped using this system sometime before I was born or my name would have been Mary Lou after my godmother, Mary Lou Opfermann.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I never got to know Grandma and Grandpa Heiden but Grandma Rambow always spoke German.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I think she could speak some English but not much.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - She used to come and pat us on the head and give us a sugar cookie. But that was about all.

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Art used to tell that you would go to the Rambow’s house and sit quietly on the couch all night.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - We had orders before we got there to behave. Take a cookie whether you want it or not

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - You were not to ask for anything but you would take it if offered.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - She made the best white sugar cookies! She rolled them up real thin and boy they were good! I often wonder what happened to the recipe books she had.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I had to fill the woodbox with firewood for the stove in the kitchen.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - The boys would do the farm work. The girls never did too much in the fields. We would help out once in a while.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Ma was always there though. She did the baking.
 
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Art worked over to Knapp’s farms.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Carl worked down to Rath’s. Wherever the boy’s worked, they stayed for room and board too.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - One thing that I hated was when Pa would let the cows out to graze along the ditches near the road. I was supposed to watch them and I was scared to death that they would get hit by a car on the road.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We had to pick raspberries, peas and strawberries from the garden.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - We used to hoe weeds out of the corn rows for 5 cents a row. When I would accidentally slice off a stalk of corn, I would prop it up in place praying that Grandpa wouldn’t see it.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We thought 5 cents a row was going to be a lot but the rows ran all the way back to the woods. You got to the end and you would say to yourself, “Ugh, there’s another 5 cents.” You would make about 15 or 20 cents a day at that rate!

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - We used to pick raspberries down to Brossia’s for 3 cents a quart.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - At Spewak’s we would pick beans and at Polley’s we would pick strawberries. I don’t remember how we got to those places but we did.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I can remember picking 80 some quarts once and I only made two dollars and forty cents. You guys would pick over 100 quarts and get over $3.00. Our hands would be all dirty and stained and then at noon, you had to eat your sandwich from a bag. It was all day long in the hot sun. Finally, Ma said, “You don’t have to do that anymore if you don’t want to.”  

Ralph Heiden - What effect did the Great Depression have on the Heiden family?

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - It didn’t seem to impact us a lot at home on the farm.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - When I started at River Raisin Paper Company in 1929 or 30, I got 18 cents an hour.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I had to pay 25 cents a day for a ride to high school and some weeks it was awfully tough to come up with that $1.25.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - We didn’t have buses in those days. If you went to high school, you had to find a ride with someone.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Viola Chambers used to give me a ride. Burkes across the river used to drive too.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I had Bonnie Zorn take me to Dundee.

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Art used to work for a dollar a day plus dinner during those times.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Roy Salow worked for us for $30 a month.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - And he probably didn’t have anything to spend it on either.

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. 

Ralph Heiden - Did any of you get to go to the dentist when you were young?

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - We went to Dr. Benham in Dundee.

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Boy, did we! He would be working on you and the farther you would slouch down in the seat, the harder he’d come after you!

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I don’t ever remember going to the dentist when I was young.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - No, we didn’t go for the regular check ups or cleaning like they do now. We went if you had a toothache and needed a tooth pulled.

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Ronnie is now going to Benham’s grandson who is a dentist too over in Petersburg.

Ralph Heiden - One of the things a lot of people have mentioned is Grandma’s cooking.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - At least three times a week, she would bake bread.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - She made the best sugar cookies!

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - One time Art went over to their house and he came back and said, “Ma’s making bread today. Don’t you think you should go and help her?”

I knew that he just wanted me to go and learn how to make bread like she did. So, I said, “With all the experience she’s had, I don’t think she needs my help!”

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - She would make donuts too. The ones I liked best where when she would make those long stick, long-johns and frost them.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - A lot of the relatives from Toledo like the Laas’ and Berlin’s would come on Sunday night just in time for dinner.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Always!

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - They would come about 4 or 5 p.m. Ma would send us down in the basement to get some more jars of preserved beef. Boy, that made the best gravy! Or, she would make some pork sausages and fried potatoes.

Ralph Heiden - You wonder now about how people make such a big deal out of eating a pat of butter or having an occasional egg for breakfast when back then, they ate the fattest meats and sausages.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Ma would save the grease from bacon. Then when you fried potatoes you would use that grease.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Sometimes they would put that old lard directly onto bread and eat it like a sandwich! And we worry about eating a little bit of butter.

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Art always talked about taking lard sandwiches to school.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I can remember coming home from school and taking a piece of fresh bread and putting the bacon grease on it for a snack.

Pa used to eat mettwurst and eggs and spicanse for breakfast.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - I can remember him cutting the fat off pork and eating it. It would make us kids almost sick.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - On Easter Sunday, he would eat six boiled eggs for breakfast. That was his traditional meal.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - During Lent, we could never go to a dance or to the movies back then.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - You never got married during Lent either. There were a lot of February weddings because you had to get married before or after Lent.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Unless it was a shotgun wedding!

William Frank Heiden - There was another small house down the road on the east end of the Wakefield farm and that is where Mary Lou was born. They had that little house for the guy who worked the farm to live in.

Wakefield lived where Jesse Barnes lived (8750 Dixon Rd) and they didn’t want to work the farm. Old man Wakefield gave me a cow on the condition that I would give them some of the milk. I used to take over a couple of quarts a day to them.

When Wakefield died, he gave me a gold watch and he left Art a horse and buggy.

Marie (Heiden) Tommelein - That was a nice watch.

William Frank Heiden - Here it is. I still have it.

Brick Tommelein - Does it run, William?

William Frank Heiden - Yes we had the movement replaced. It’s got a porcelain dial.

Helen (Henning) Heiden - We took it down to a jeweler to see how much it might be worth in case somebody might break in and take it. They told us it’s not pure gold because it wears off over time.

William Frank Heiden - I’ve had it seventy years and I rarely carry it in my pocket yet it’s all worn off. Old Wakefield must have carried it for a long time before he died.

Brick Tommelein - Some of those old railroad watches used to be worth something.

Ralph Heiden - Why did Mr. Wakefield leave things to you boys?

William Frank Heiden - Well, we always waited on him and did things for him all the time.

Brick Tommelein - Mil, was that when Art started courting you when he had that buggy?

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - No, he had an old Model T Ford by the time we starting going out.

Marie (Heiden) Tommelein - Remember we used to play tricks on old Wakefield? It was after we got a telephone. When Ma and Pa would be gone, we would watch to see when he was outside and then we’d call him up. As soon as he got in the house, we’d hang up. Later he would tell Pa, “Somebody kept calling me all day today. By the time I got there, they’d hang up!”

Ralph Heiden - I didn’t think you guys did that kind of stuff. (laughs)

Marie (Heiden) Tommelein - Oh, yes we did but Pa never knew it.

William Frank Heiden - We used to go sparrow hunting with him (Billy Miller) back when there was a bounty on sparrows. He used to put the dead sparrows in his pockets and he’d go to divide them up and we’d sneak into his other pocket and take one out while he wasn’t looking.

Marie (Heiden) Tommelein - I used to hold the flashlight for Art and Heinie Heiden (right) when they would go after sparrows at night. They got 2 cents a piece and I never got anything!

William Frank Heiden - I used to go into that house a lot of times. There was a barn across the road on the south side. They had a corn crib and chicken coop on the north side where the house was. The red garage out in our drive came from that house when they tore it down. The beams and things came from that old house.

English sparrows are a non-native species and in 1887 Michigan paid a bounty of 1 cent per dead bird brought to the county clerk's office. I was unaware of it as a boy growing up in the 1950s and 60s but technically, the law was still in effect until repealed in 2000.

Ralph Heiden - I asked people to write down a little remembrance of Grandpa and Grandma and those have turned out to be really nice.

Brick Tommelein -   Here, one of our kids says that Grandpa used to reward him with a little sip of beer.

Marie (Heiden) Tommelein - Pa always knew all of his grandchildren by name. When you think of it, that was amazing since he had so many of them.

William Frank Heiden - And it’s not like today when your grandchildren are spread all over and you don’t get to see them very often. Back then, they got to see them all the time.

It’s hard sometimes to keep track of them especially with the names they come up with now. You don’t see many Johns or Bills.

Marie (Heiden) Tommelein - Tell me about it!

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - My grandchildren go from A to Z. Adam to Zachary.

Helen (Henning) Heiden -   Tom and Janice’s last grandchild is named Peyton.

Marie (Heiden) Tommelein - Our neighbor’s have a little girl they named Montgomery Alicia! That poor kid when she goes to school. She has a long life ahead of her.

Over the years, we have also received written memories and remembrances about this person or topic from various family members.

   
   
   

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Mildred Heiden Ralph Heiden Marie Tommelein  Brick Tommelein 
Wm Frank Heiden Helen Heiden Dianne Houpt Mary Lou Opfermann
Wilma Bicking Pat Klass Helma Nickel Jeanie Heiden
 

  • Wilma, Jeanie, Wm Frank, Helma & Marie were children of Wm Carl and Mary Heiden

  • Mildred was married to Arthur Heiden, son of Wm Carl and Mary and was mother of Ralph Heiden

  • Helen was wife of Wm Frank and they were parents of Dianne

  • Pat was daughter of Wilma Bicking

  • Mary Lou is daughter of Leo and Lucille Heiden

  • Ralph, Dianne, Pat and Mary Lou were first cousins

  1. Wm Carl & Mary Heiden
  2. Wm Carl Heiden
  3. Mary (Rambow) Heiden
  4. Heinrich & Emma (Stock) Heiden
  5. Herman & Reka Heiden (Article)
  1. Herman & Reka Heiden (Drake)
  2. Heinrich & Wilhelmina Rambow
  3. Walter Berns Poem
  4. Family Fun Times

  1. Alice Berlin
  2. Edna Berns
  3. Lavern Berns
  4. Walter Berns
  5. Wilma Bicking
  6. Myrna Bishop
  7. Caroline Brown
  8. Bertha Burgard
  9. Donna Burge
  10. Rika Burmeister
  11. Janice Clark
  12. Bertha Drake
  13. Mildred Eipperle
  14. Hilda Fuller
  15. Walter Grams
  16. Sally Guy
  17. Arthur Heiden
  18. August & Rika Heiden
  19. August Heiden Children
  20. Carl Heiden
  21. Ernst Heiden
  22. Harold Heiden
  23. Heinrich Heiden
  24. Heinrich Heiden Children
  25. Helen E. Heiden
  26. Henry Wm Heiden
  27. Herman Heiden
  28. Herman & Reka Heiden
  29. John Heiden
  30. Leo Heiden
  31. Lester Heiden
  32. Maria Heiden
  33. Mary Heiden
  34. Meta Heiden
  1. Norma "Jeanie" Heiden
  2. Robert Heiden
  3. Roger Heiden, Sr.
  4. Velda Heiden
  5. Wm Carl & Mary Heiden
  6. Wm Frank Heiden
  7. William Leo Heiden
  8. Dianne Houpt
  9. Kanseyer Family
  10. Lena Koster
  11. Marvin Koster
  12. Laas Family
  13. Libbie Laas
  14. William Laas
  15. Lucille Lehmkuhl
  16. Milhan Family
  17. Frederick Milhan
  18. Henry Milhan
  19. Linda Miller
  20. Möller Family
  21. Helma Nickel
  22. Mary Lou Opfermann
  23. Rambow Family
  24. The Rambows by Drake
  25. Fred Rambow
  26. Henry Rambow III
  27. Minnie Rambow
  28. Wilhelmina Rambow
  29. Fredareka Schmidt
  30. Pastor Don Thomas
  31. Carol Toburen
  32. Dennis Tommelein
  33. Marie Tommelein

  1. Bridge School
  2. Christmas Eve Party
  3. Dentist Visit
  4. Dixon Rd Lots
  5. The Great Depression
  6. Education
  7. Emigration
  8. Five Generations
  9. German Book
  10. Germany
  11. Grape Community
  12. Wm Heiden Home Farm
  13. Indian Burial Ground
  14. Letters from Germany
  15. Life on the Farm
  1. Lutheran Church
  2. Mecklenburg, Germany
  3. Middle Names
  4. Nephews
  5. Helma Nickel's Cooking
  6. Old Receipts
  7. Reunions
  8. Sparrow Hunting
  9. Stormy Weather
  10. Wedding Shiveree
  11. Willows by the River
  12. The Woodlot
  13. Work on the Farm
  14. Wakefield Gifts