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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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 Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - You say they bought the
house in 1909? I thought
Great Grandpa built the house.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden -
Pa bought the place from
Meyers.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Stella Graf’s grandma and
grandma built that house.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I forget what Pa said they
had to pay for the farm. I think it was about $75 per acre or
something. It was 140 acres.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - It is 141 acres. They always
had to go down to Stella’s folks, the Langs, to pay the mortgage
payments.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - They must have bought it on
land contract then or they wouldn’t have had to pay the Langs.
Afterwards, they got a loan from Monroe County Bank. I was still
in high school when they finally paid it off. That would have
been in the early 1940's, maybe 1941 or so.
Sometimes they would have to
borrow money to pay the taxes. Fortunately, Gilbert Oyer at the
bank knew all those farmers and he knew they were good for it.
He’d loan them the money for the taxes but then they would not
be getting any of the principal down on the loan that year.
Ralph Heiden - I have some
old property tax receipts that my great grandfather,
August Heiden, paid from the late 1800's to about 1911.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Where did they live
then?
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Over on
South Custer where
Uncle John and Aunt Agnes
(Brockman) Heiden
lived.
Ralph Heiden - The property tax form says that
August Heiden's
property on South Custer Road was bordered on the north by Jacob
Mathis, on the east by George Rath and William D. Miller, and on
the west by
Ernst "Ernest" Heiden. In some of the older
receipts, it says they were bordered on the north by W. Stock,
on east by C. Rath and on the west by K. Opfermann.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - K. Opfermann?
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Killian Opfermann would be
Frank’s dad.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Did William and Helen
ever have a survey done on the home farm?
Ralph Heiden - Yes, they wrote in their letter that
they have a copy of the title search.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - That’s what I do for a
living. I’ve been doing it since April 3, 1946 and worked until
April 30, 1989. Now I work part-time at it.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - We’ll have to have a big
party next year to celebrate Jeanie working 50 years.
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Ralph Heiden - My generation has some memories of our grandparents but,
like I said in the letter,
Grandpa was 74 when I was born so there
is a lot of his life I do not remember.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - He was 52 and Ma was 49 when I was born! I don’t remember Ma
and Pa without grey hair.
Pat (Bicking) Klass - I remember Grandpa more than Grandma. We were up to their
house to play more than anything.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - The kids weren’t up there to talk with their grandparents.
 Ralph Heiden - What illnesses did Grandma have toward the end of her life?
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I think it was mostly her heart.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Her death certificate calls it arteriosclerosis. Hardening
of the arteries.
Ralph Heiden - I vaguely remember something about a lung problem.
Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Yes, she had bronchitis.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Her one lung was almost completely calcified.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Seems like she would get pneumonia about every year.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - They had to put a tube in her lung once to draw out fluids.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I took her to Ann Arbor one time and they came out and said,
“Your mother has one lung completely calcified and the other one is
starting to go. I would say your mother has about 6 months to live.”
Ralph Heiden - When was that?
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - It was about 15 years before she died!
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I took her to a Toledo heart clinic. When he got done
examining her, he called me in the office. He showed me an EKG and
it had a real thin little line. He said, “Now that string, if that
breaks, she is gone. So don’t let her do much work.”
After that, she would lie on the davenport a lot and avoid the heavy
work.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - She would get awfully tired so easy.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Sometimes she would want to bake cookies but she would get
them started and then be too tired to finish them. But that was 15
or 20 years before she died.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - She evidently had pleurisy or something and every year she
would get a cold. And it seemed like her lungs never cleared up.
That calcified in there.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Remember they tapped her side and put a tube in to drain off
that excess.
Ralph Heiden - I had a similar problem when I was 18. My lung collapsed and
I had to have a tube inserted to drain off the excess fluids.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I can remember that Dr. Marin would come over when she had
the colds. He would start her off on sulfa drugs. Then a brown spot
she had on her face would turn a bright red. Then he would switch to
something else. Then he would switch to terramycin and finally clear
it up. I asked him why he always started with something else before
switching to terramycin which always worked. Why not start right out
with terramycin?
He said, “Well, I always start with the weaker stuff before moving
up to the more powerful drugs.”
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Ralph Heiden - Did
Sally
Eipperle live at Grandpa’s house for a while? I guess I
never knew that.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Yes, she lived there about 7
years. John and her moved in after her mother,
Mildred’s, death.
He used to listen to the radio show, The Inner Sanctum,
on Sunday nights and I would be so scared.
Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Everybody liked John.
 Helma
(Heiden) Nickel - John (left) and Jeanette (John's second wife) were always good to
the folks too. They would take them places in John’s car.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Ma and Pa never got to go
anywhere so John took them up north one time. He took them up to
Cedarville. There was
Uncle Fred,
Aunt Emmie
(Rambow), Ma and Pa and Sally and me.
We
had three flat tires on the way. We stayed in a tourist home
just over the straits. I don’t think there were any motels then.
I slept on the floor.
 Aunt
Emmie (right) brought a big can of Crisco oil to fry the fish in.
They all went fishing and we all ate our fill of fish that
night.
On the way up, we stopped in Cheboygan and we
had dinner in a restaurant. I don’t remember Ma and Pa
eating out very much around home. Ma order ham and she was
shocked at the size of the portion they served her.
This would have been about 1940 or so. With all the people
in the car, no wonder we had so many flat tires.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann
- Remember how fast John used to drive? I can remember John and
Mildred, and my
Mother and Dad and I went down to Elkhart,
Indiana. Mother kept telling him to slow down!
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - The more she would holler,
the faster he would go, too!
 Mildred
(Roggerman) Heiden - He took us up north one time and, by
gosh, nobody was going to get ahead of him! Jeanette was
sitting in the back telling him to slow down. I think I had the
floor board nearly pushed through trying to hold on.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Remember, Jeanie, when
John took us down onto the river ice pulling us on a sled behind
his car?
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - The river had to be frozen at
least a foot thick before Pa would let us skate on it. One
Sunday while Ma and Pa were at
Grandma
Rambow’s, John let us hook the sled behind his car. He would
head down the river and then he would slam on the breaks and
yell, “Hang on back there!” The snow was flying in our
faces and we were just airborne. We could have been killed
but it was a lot of fun! Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden
- He was something else!
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - We used to stay over to
John and Mildred’s when they lived on
Dunbar Road and she would help us make popcorn and Kool Aid
or lemonade to sell out by the road.
 Norma
"Jeanie" Heiden - That was always a highlight when they
would come over to play cards. I would be sitting there and
Mildred would tell me to ask if I could go over to their place
for a few days. They took me to Woodland Beach which was a big
deal in those days. They had a week’s vacation and they used to
stay down there at some relative’s cottage. There was this girl about my age there and she said, “Let’s take a walk around the lake.” I looked at the lake and thought I couldn’t walk that far. So about half way around, I started back and I got lost and I was praying and everything because I didn’t know where I was. Finally, I got back and Mildred said, “Where have you been?” I just said, “Oh, out walking.” I was so darned scared but I didn’t dare let on. We went out on a raft in the lake and John asked if I could swim. I said, “No.” So, he threw me in the water. He pulled me out quickly but I don’t like the water ever since. |
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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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Pictured
is what was called a cassette tape back in pre-digital
times.
Wilma, Jeanie, Wm Frank, Helma & Marie were
children of 
