1. Life on the Home Farm
2. Wm & Mary’s Home Farm

1. German Letters
2. Bridge School
3. Gifts from Mr Wakefield
4. Sparrow Hunting
5. Other Remembrances

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. 

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. 

Ralph Heiden - The letters are rather sad overall. They were having some very tough times in Germany then and they were always asking their Aunt Rika, my great grandmother, for money.

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - In one of them, they ask for some money for a house and some land. Then, later they say they bought the house but needed more money for the land.

Marie (Heiden) Tommelein - Did they ever help them?

Ralph Heiden - Yes, they sent money when they could and they were always very appreciative of it and told what the money would buy.

Brick Tommelein -   My dad said that at that time, everyone over in Europe called America “the land of opportunity.”

Ralph Heiden - A lot of people here were helping their relatives then too. In one of the letters, they ask Rika to send her letters registered because people were stealing things from mail from America because those envelopes were likely to have money in them.

Helen (Henning) Heiden -   Now are these letters all from Mecklenburg?

Ralph Heiden - Yes. They are from the area called Mecklenburg and the port city of Rostock. The little villages where our ancestors came from are the size of Grape and Maybee and they are about 50 miles from Rostock.

Helen (Henning) Heiden -   From the Hennings, I heard them say that the people were like slaves back then in Germany. They worked for all these big rich people. They provided pay for them and took care of them but they couldn’t get ahead. They didn’t want them to get married because there were already too many of them to take care of. That is where the Hennings came from too.

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - Didn’t you say that our name should be something other than Heiden?

Ralph Heiden - Yes, my great grandmother, Maria Heiden, did not marry the father of August. So, he took her name rather than his father’s which was Kanseyer or Canseyer.

Helen (Henning) Heiden -   That’s the same way with my grandpa Henning. Grandma wasn’t married when she had those two kids.

Ralph Heiden - That was a real common occurrence back then.

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - They wouldn’t let you get married unless you could support yourself.

Ralph Heiden - They technically weren’t slaves but there was nowhere else for them to go except to another big estate to work and they were full too. Also, the landowner had the responsibility to take care of the people on his land so he was stuck too.

That is why they pushed a lot of them to leave and go to America. Also, the illegitimacy rate went way up because even though they weren’t legally allowed to marry, people continued to form couples and do what they needed to do.

Helen (Henning) Heiden -   You wonder why the Heidens would come here but they said on the Henning side that they would send money back to Germany to help others come here.

Ralph Heiden - But with the Heidens, we don’t know who was here to pave the way for them. Maybe with this Laas connection, there might be something to go on.

The Rambows came a year later. They came here in 1874 and I don’t know if they came from the same part of Germany as the Heidens. I haven’t looked into that yet. (See the note below)

I think about the only way we are going to learn why the Heidens came here is if we stumble onto somebody in one of the other branches that has an old box of papers up in the attic that someone gave them long ago. Otherwise, the reason may be lost to history.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - You might get something from Caroline Brown (right) too. Helma was going to check with her. She and her husband, Bill, used to attend all the old reunions. He used to take movies of the reunions. She is somehow related to the Laas side.

William Frank Heiden - She was Uncle John Laas’ daughter.

Marie (Heiden) Tommelein - She came to our place in Florida one time looking for Helma’s address.

Ralph Heiden - Perhaps she would have the old films laying around someplace. We could put them on videotape.

Marie (Heiden) Tommelein - I don’t remember him taking movies.

Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Oh, yes. Don’t you remember everybody trying to duck out of the way all the time?

Helen (Henning) Heiden - You know, Aunt Agnes probably had some old papers.

Ralph Heiden - Yes, that is where I got a lot of these old documents. They had the names of the old villages in Germany where August and his wife and three of their children were born. There was also a document that I think is August’s discharge paper from the army. He served from 1859 to 1861.

Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - His naturalization papers were there too.

Ralph Heiden - Yes, the papers where he applied for citizenship and then was granted U.S. citizenship.

Further research by Karen (Berns) Wheaton and myself found that the Rambows and Heidens lived in the same little village of Gross Wokern, Germany. Caroline Brown's maiden name was Laas.

Ralph Heiden - What do you two (William Frank and Marie) remember about going to Bridge School?

Marie (Heiden) Tommelein - I had Kenneth Bordine the first year I went there and then Harrison Dentel the rest of the way.

William Frank Heiden - We had fifty some kids all together in one room. He would teach one grade at a time. But I really don’t remember much about my childhood.

Helen (Henning) Heiden -   Seems funny he doesn’t remember any of his childhood about going to school and stuff.

Brick Tommelein -   I agree with William, I just remember a few bits and pieces here and there but not that much.

William Frank Heiden (left) - I remember Fritz Milhan hit me in the head with a ball bat. We would play toss up and he swung and got me good. I didn’t have to go to school for about 3 months!

Ralph Heiden - I have a scar underneath my chin. The teacher used to ring a bell at the end of recess and I was standing too close and she popped me right under the chin.

William Frank Heiden - You should have sued them for that, Ha!

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.