1. Life on the Home Farm

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.