1. Middle Names
2. Life on Dixon Road
3. Life on the Home Farm
4. Christmas Eve Party
5. Thunderstorms
6. Working on the Farm

1. Wm Carl Home Farm
2. Anita (Kroeger) Heiden

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. 

Ralph Heiden - Many people mentioned the Christmas Eve’s at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. What do you remember about those parties?

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - After church everybody would come over and people would be all over the house, sitting in the bedrooms and everywhere. There were so many people in the house all at once on that night!

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - I used to wonder why Grandma (right holding Bruce Eipperle) would set quietly in the background during those parties. Well, after I had all my children and grandchildren home at once, I could begin to understand. It gets so hectic.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - It got to be too much. Pa went down to the basement one time and put an extra brace under the floor because he was afraid that so many people being there at once would collapse the floor.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - The men used to try to play cards out in the dining room and the kids would race around the whole house. They would tear around that table. You could just see Pa get frustrated but he never said anything.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - I remember Helen saying that the next morning she would find half-eaten sandwiches down beneath the furniture.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - There would be food everywhere and wrapping paper wadded all over the place. Christmas Day was never anything special for us. People would go to the other side of their families for visits. We would be all by ourselves, cleaning up the mess and returning chairs we borrowed from the church.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - I remember Grandpa got plenty of shirts, pipes and tobacco for presents at Christmas.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Ma would sit there in the living room and unwrap her gifts. She and Pa both got a present from everybody who came. The children all drew names and then got a present from whoever picked their name. Sometimes your godparent gave you a present too.

We were lucky, we got an orange and some candy from church. Hilda and Carl stood up for me so they would each give me a present and that was about it.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I had seven godchildren to buy presents for each year. Five girls and two boys.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I remember one time Ma and Pa gave me a harmonica for Christmas.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - When we were young, we would usually get something like a sled or a wagon for all the brothers and sisters to use.

Ralph Heiden - Everyone would go to the service at St Matthew Lutheran Church on Christmas Eve. The kids were part of a Christmas pageant play. What do you remember about those?

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Yeah, my heart was always beating like crazy before we had to stand up in front of everyone and speak our lines. I was so scared to do that sometimes.

Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I remember when they had the real candles on the tree in the church. Carl Miller stood nearby with a fishing pole that had a wet sponge attached to it. He was supposed to put the candles out when they burned down close to the tree.

Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - We used to have candles on the tree at home too but Pa would never allow us to light them.

Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Pa was always concerned about fires in the house. 

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.

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 - Grandpa (William Carl) Heiden bought this farm in 1909 or there about. There are stories about great grandpa (August) Heiden doing the masonry work on the house. Do you know anything about that?

William Frank Heiden - I heard them talking about walking over here from South Custer when Pa was about 13 or 14 to help his dad do the brick work.

Ralph Heiden - Then that would have been about 1890. So that was when someone else owned it?

William Frank Heiden - Yes, I think it was the Langs or someone else who owned the farm at that time.

Ralph Heiden - The 1873 county plat book I think lists the owner of this farm as a man named Meyers.

William Frank Heiden - They called him “Milky Meyers.” I always heard Pa talking about him.

Ralph Heiden - The plat map also showed a piece of landlocked property located on the back of this property. There wasn’t any access from Ida Maybee Road, Dixon, Mulheisen or South Custer.

William Frank Heiden - That would be on the back end of Suhciks farm. It was the Stokes (Stock) that had an old house back in there on a hill. Could be some relation to Bill Stokes (Stock), Aunt Emma’s (right) relations.

Ralph Heiden - There also used to be a house on the north side of the road just east of here. I know Mary Lou was born there and Carl and Anita lived there for a while too.

William Frank Heiden - Carl lived next door here where Jessie Barnes lived. Verdell was born there. Edna and Henry lived in the other place for a while and Bill and Alice (Brossia) Heiden lived there too. Bill worked the farm. That was when old Jesse Wakefield owned it.

Wm Carl Heiden bought the farm on April 1, 1909 which was his 35th birthday. August Heiden was a brick mason by trade. Also, although the family of Emma (Mrs Heinrich) Heiden was often referred to as the "Stokes", but in the obituaries of other family members, they were always under the name Stock.