The Bert Heydinger Family Website

Created by Mike Heydinger on October 1, 2009      

Albert (Bert) Heydinger was born to Peter and Rose Heydinger on August 14, 1885, the very first Heydinger grandchild born in America. He attended schools and then left to begin working as a farmer all his life.

On November 30,1911, Bert married Rose Kanney and together they produced eleven children, the oldest living only eleven hours. Ten lived to reach marriageable age, with nine eventually marrying. Bert farmed his entire life, living on a XXX acre farm just YYYY of New Washington. As a sideline, Bert used to custom butcher also.

Bert and Rose were known far and wide for their hospitality. Rose's chicken dinners were legendary, as were the occasional coon roasts, pigeon feeds and oyster stews, all complemented with Bert's best home brews or cider.

Speaking of Home brews, it seems that Bert was a little TOO good at whipping up a batch now and then. We have it on no less an authority than his son Virgil that he had found a canceled check among Bert's effects, dating from back in "Revino'er Days," and in the amount of $75 made out to the sheriff of Crawford County. It seems that Bert had been a tad lax in his usual precautionary habits and was nabbed for illegal booze. It must have been an amount far in excess of that customarily used for purely medicinal purposes, hence the considerable size of the fine. Seventy-five dollars was a hefty sum during the Depression, and we do not know whether it had the deterent effect or not. Not to sweat though, as laws back then permitted a family an ample supply of wines and ciders

Basically the Volstead Act prohibited alcoholic beverages but allowed a crack in the law for wines used for sacramental purposes. A separate provision allowed families to make ten gallons of wine per year. Now here's where interpretation comes in. Did that mean a total of ten gallons of wine per family or did it mean ten gallons per type of wine? We think Bert took the latter route, for we have in our possession a book of family recipes from the Bert Heydinger family. Included in the booklet are several "recipes." in Bert's handwriting, for various wines, from the usual grape to cherry, raspberry, dandelion - even elderberry blossoms - and others. We have no records of whether the amount of religiosity increased in the family during the same period.

Another little known fact about Bert is that he and his brother Ott made a few bucks on the side in the breeding business. They owned a stallion bewteen them and actually had a brochure made up advertising the fees for the stallion's standing at stud. Was it the white Belgian that dorothy talks abouot?

If you didn't know how to play cards, you were doomed to a boring afternoon at Bert's place. He and the family always worked their way through the rigors of the Great Depression around the big kitchen table with a deck of cards and board games. It was a pleasant family life down there on the farm, despite the trying economic times.

Bert and Rose were justifiabley proud of their seven children who served in the military, most during WWII. Their prayers were answered in the safe return of all.

Rose eventually passed away on July 13, 1946, at the age of only 54 after a kidney operation, having seen only two of her many grandchildren. Bert followed Rose a few yeaars later in 1954 at the age of 69. He died on July 20, 1954, at home of dropsey. He lived long enough to see fourteen of his grandchildren. Both are buried together in St. Bernard's Cemetery in New Washington.

The Bert and Rose Heydinger children are as follows:

HELP!!! We need your HELP!!!

Posted by Mike Heydinger on October 15, 2009      

This is YOUR FAMILY WEBSITE. It will be successful only if YOU contribute. You do NOT have to be computer savy to help out. Contact us, and we'll git'er done!

We need Current Contact Information.

In order to keep all folks fully informed, we need CURRENT CONTACT INFORMATION: street addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses.

Contact your siblings, your children away from home, your folks - anyone in the relation - to email us their current contact information. Send it to me at Mike_Heydinger@HuronHS.com.

If you are more comfortable with snail-mail, send any information to me at Mike Heydinger Box 112 Huron, OH 44839.

We need Family History Data.

Also, we would like to do a full page here of information on each branch of the original John Heydinger family. We will post histories of each branch, pictures as far back as we can get them, and any other interesting data about the branches - whatever YOU think ought to be up on the site. We ask you to send us digital files if possible. If you are not computer savy and still wish to make a contribution of materials to this site, please email us and we can arrange to either come to you or have materials shipped to us for scanning and then return to you.

PLEASE - on all pictures, identify each person with a recognizable face. If known, indicate the year and place the picture was taken. Protect your valuable pictures and documents with cardboard stiffeners!

We need Current Family Tree Information.

If you go to the FAMILY GENEALOGY TREE in the column to the right, you can open it by clicking on the RED words This Family Tree and locate your immediate family's limbs, branches, and twigs on the family tree.

The further back you go, the more accurate the information actually is. What we need most is more MODERN up-to-date information.

Locate your part of the family's information and update it for us, PLEASE. Email to us the new and improved data. Don't worry about formating the data. Just give us the names and important dates, tell us what generation they are in and under whose name they should go. Generation numbers are included just to the LEFT of each name.

In order to have the NEW information included in the revised tree, you MUST get it to us. We will maintain the original document in order to guarantee security. Sorry!