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  A
monumental part of many people's lives are the years they spend in
school. It is usually a time when we make many new friends, some of which last for the rest
of our lives. That special teacher or coach makes a big impact on
our thinking that helps us maneuver through the adult world. It is a
time of discovery, learning and fun that is a unique experience for
each of us.
A very large percentage of the people in the families covered in
this website attended high school in the little towns of Dundee or
Ida, Michigan. They were either Vikings or Comets and the athletic
teams of the schools played regularly each year.
The genealogy website, Ancestry.com, has a section where yearbooks
from high schools across the country have been scanned into digital
form. As a member of Ancestry, I was able to view yearbooks for
Dundee High School from 1949 into the 1980s. Not every year is
available but there are enough to find pictures of many, many
relatives. Several yearbooks were also available for the high
schools in Ida, Milan, Monroe, Britton, Deerfield, Blissfield, Battle
Creek, Mt Pleasant, Toledo and other places were family members lived.
 By
far, the largest number of our relatives have attended Dundee High
School. Very early members all attended
Bridge School in Raisinville
Township through the 8th grade. In the late 1940s when these one-room schools were
consolidated into community school districts, Bridge became part of
the Dundee grouping.
Of Wm Carl and Mary Heiden's 13 children, the first four started
their education at
King School
on South Custer Road. All
of them attended nearby Bridge School through the 8th grade. Only the final
two daughters,
Norma "Jeanie" Heiden and
Wilma (Heiden) Bicking
attended high school and that was in Dundee. Of Wm and Mary's 38
grandchildren, around half attended Bridge for all or part of their
education.
 Others
of August Heiden's descendents in the turn of the twentieth century generation attended
the one-room
Fonia School.
It was also taken into
a consolidated school district in the late 40s.
From
what we have found, it appears that a majority of us with the
surname Heiden attended Dundee. This is with the exception of those
in the Herman Heiden branch who lived in
Isabella
County
starting in 1915. They were
the only early generation of the Heiden family to move away from Monroe
County.
 Of Wm Carl and Mary's children only
Hilda (Heiden) Fuller
lived outside the county with their children going to school in
Battle Creek. Wilma (Heiden) Bicking's children went to Monroe High
School and
Marie (Heiden) Tommelein's sons attended Milan High
School.
Donna Burge and
Bob
Heiden, offspring of Lester Heiden, and
Sally Guy
(left) daughter of
Mildred (Heiden) Eipperle went to Ida High School
So, these high school
yearbooks only included a few of August's grandchildren but nearly
all of his great grandchildren. For example,
38
of the grandchildren of
Wm Carl Heiden (August's son) are heavily represented in the pages
of this section of the website. The pictures include class
pictures, school organizations, sports, scholastic
honors and snapshots that help us get to know these
people better. We have a lot of special people in our
family!
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