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 Ralph Heiden - Do you remember much about your Grandfather,
August Heiden (left)?
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Not too much, of course, he died in 1922 and Grandma died in
1926. I can just remember that he couldn’t hear well and used a
horn to hear people talk to him. We would go over there on Sunday
afternoons and he’d always want to know the text of the sermon.
Somehow, he would always seem to know just what the sermon was
about.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - That is surprising because I would have expected the
Rambow
side to be religious ones. But you said that Grandpa Heiden very
religious.
Ralph Heiden - Here is a picture of
August Heiden.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Grandpa Heiden looks like a happy guy. Looks a little like Ralph.
 Ralph Heiden - Here are some other
pictures of August and his children. I
have several of their marriage pictures too.
We must have got our height in the family from the Rambow side.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Uncle
Fred Rambow used to come over and play cards all the
time. Uncle Fred would say, “My luck is terrible” and get up and
throw his leg over the top of the chair. Then he would say, “Now we
will play cards!’ He was very tall.
 In
the picture, Mary (Rambow) Heiden (Ma) has her back to the camera.
Her husband William Carl (Pa) is to her left and brother
Fred Rambow
is to her right. Across the table is Fred's wife, Emma (Westphal).
The picture is from the late 1950s. Click on it to see a larger
version.
Ralph Heiden - Here is a picture that says it is great-great-Grandma
Heiden.
Later research determined that it was actually a picture of
August's half-sister, Friedericka Schmidt. Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Let’s see a picture of her. So that’s where this all got
started!
Ralph Heiden - A lot of the information I have came from the Mormon Church
records. They have a belief that, if you can find who your ancestors
were, they can be baptized after death into the Mormon religion. That’s why they went all over the world microfilming old church
records. If you know what church your ancestors attended, you can
get the microfilm from Salt Lake City. The problem is that the
records are in old script writing and the microfilming is not always
readable.
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Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I have an old family picture that has a lot of other people
who we cannot identify. Perhaps they are the
Rambow branch?
 Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - They may have lived in Dundee for a while because Ma got
confirmed in the church in Dundee, I think. But maybe the preacher from Dundee came down here to do the confirmations. [See Note Below]
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - I remember when
Grandpa
(Heinrich) Rambow (left) died, they were living down
there on
South Custer Rd. Across from where
Lester lived. I was only
about 8 years old when that happened.
 Jeanie & Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Remember when
Uncle Herman married
Aunt Reka and Pa
married Mary. Brothers married two sisters.
Uncle John started going
with Aunt Minnie and Grandma Rambow said, “That’s enough of those
Heidens!”
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Perhaps Aunt Minnie would have been a different person if
she had married Uncle John.
 Helma (Heiden) Nickel
-
Uncle John couldn’t have got any better wife than he did
with Aunt Agnes.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - He used to make cherry pit wine.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - He would make it out of pits and some cherries too.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - It was potent stuff!
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - At one time, I had August’s “thunder mug” but I don’t have
it anymore. The ceramic was kind of checked in the bottom and it was
very well used. I often wondered how they got down to use it since
it was so low to the ground.
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William and
Minnie Rambow
were unmarried brother and sister who lived together on the
family farm on South Custer Rd their entire lives.
Also, according to the 1880 U.S. Census, Heinrich and Wilhelmina
(Milhan) Rambow were living in Dundee Township with children,
Friedrich "Fred",
Bertha (Burgard),
Henry III and
Mary (Heiden). Their third daughter,
Fredareka (Heiden) was born in 1880 probably after the date
of the census and
William was born in 1882 followed by
Miss Minnie in 1886. We do not know exactly when they moved
to the farm on South Custer but it shows at least that Henry III
and Mary were born in Dundee Township. Fred and Bertha
were born in Germany. |
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 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. |
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Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann -
Norma Miller remembered that Grandma Rambow
(right) was a crabby
old lady.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - She was very strict evidently. We used to get instruction
before we went there that we were to sit quietly and not ask for
anything.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - I remember going to Aunt Minnie Rambow’s and she would be
sitting there reading the Bible. You didn’t dare say a word until
she was done with her scripture. William and Minne Rambow were Mary (Rambow) Heiden and Fredarecka Heiden's brother and sister. They lived together through their adult lives at the family farm on South Custer Rd.  Mildred (Roggerman) Heiden - One time Lu (Lucille Heiden, mother of Mary Lou Opfermann) (right) and I were wall papering at their house.
Uncle Will Rambow came out of the kitchen and stood in the doorway
because he had dinner ready.
Lu said to me, “We might as well go home now because he won’t let
her eat until we leave.”
So, although we had only one strip of paper to hang to finish the
room, we left for the day and came back the next day so they could
eat their dinner. Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - That was the quietest house I was ever in, I remember.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I used to have to stay there all summer. That was torture.
That’s why I am such a quiet person. (Laughter)
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - Tick Tok, Tick Tok, that old clock they had was so loud
in the quiet of the room.
  Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - At ten minutes to nine every night, Uncle Will (right) would get the
Bible and hand it to Aunt Minnie (left). She would then read to him in
German until 9 o’clock. And I’d set there real still, never saying a
word.
When she was done, he would take the Bible and put it back on the
shelf. Without saying a word, he would go upstairs to bed. There
wasn’t any talking going on at all in the house.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - There wasn’t anything for them to do. They didn’t have a
radio or anything. After Grandma Rambow died, Herb and I used to go
down there to visit. Uncle Willie just loved to play cards. We would
have a real good time. Edna and Henry used to go there and have a good time too. The two of
them were so used to just sitting there in the quiet by themselves.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - After Aunt Minnie died, Uncle Will finally got a
television.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - He had a dog that he used to fry two eggs for each day.
 Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - I would think that the Rambows and the Heidens came over
from Germany about the same time. They had some of the same type of
furniture. Remember that settee that you had, Helma? Grandpa and
Grandma Rambow had a similar piece of furniture in their house.
Maybe the two families knew each other before they came over from
Germany.
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - Well the Milhans all went to Bridge School way back then
too.
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August Heiden and family came to America in 1873 and Heinrich Rambow came in 1874. They were from the same small village in Germany, Gross Wokern. Wilhelmina Rambow's maiden name was a Milhan.
 The picture is of a typical 19th century German settee but, unfortunately, it is not the actual one referenced above. |
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Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - Were the Rambows on the ship list that you got, Ralph?
Ralph Heiden - No but I don’t have the complete list. I only have a copy of
the first page with the details about the ship and then the page
that lists August
Heiden and his family. They were passengers number
304 through 308 so there were probably 400 or more people on the
boat. I will check it out.
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking - It is funny that they lost that baby, Meta and didn’t name
some other children after her later on.
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden - Helma, is your middle name, Meta?
Helma (Heiden) Nickel - No, its Nettie. That was Nettie Spohr, they were a neighbor
and she stood up for me. She and Aunt Emmie and Uncle Heinrich "Henry" Heiden
were my Godparents.
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The Rambows came to America in April, 1874 on the ship, S.S. Thuringia about one year after the Heidens arrived in 1873 on the S.S. Saxonia. |
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 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.
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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. |
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[Looking at family pictures again.]
Helen (Henning) Heiden - Those are the
Rambows there.
Uncle Will and
Aunt Minnie.
That’s Aunt Reka.
William Frank Heiden - They more or less looked alike. They were all pretty big
women.
Ralph Heiden - It’s interesting to look at
Grandma
(Mary) and how she changed
over
the years.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - She was really a pretty young girl in the Rambow group
picture.
William Frank Heiden - She held up awfully good for someone who had 13 children.
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Uncle
Will was
William Rambow. Aunt Minnie was
Will's sister,
Wilhelmina Rambow and Aunt Reka was
Fredareka "Reka" (Rambow)
Heiden who was married to Wm Carl's younger brother,
Herman Heiden.
Mary was the wife of
Wm Carl Heiden.
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[Looking at old family reunion pictures
from the 1920's]
 Brick Tommelein -
Mother
(Mary) Heiden (right) was a tall woman. It didn’t seem like it at
the time but when you look at her in these pictures, she seems quite
tall.
Mary Lou (Heiden) Opfermann - All the
Rambows were big people.
Ralph Heiden - In this one old picture that guy with the hat and string tie
looks like he just got back from the wild west.
Helen (Henning) Heiden - He looks like Wyatt Earp!
Ralph Heiden - This was about 1921 or so, I think.
William Frank Heiden - Maybe that was old
Bill Laas from Texas. He might look
like that.
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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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Wilma, Jeanie, Wm Frank, Helma & Marie were
children of 
