The wedding invitation of August Heydinger and Mary Wechter. Mayme had been living with her aunt and uncle, the Burger's, helping them on their farm. As it happened, Gus was also living on their next door farm, working and helping out there. Love blossomed over the fences!
The August Heydinger Family Site
August Heydinger (1878 - 1954) or Gus or Gust for short, was the second youngest of John Heydinger's nine boys.
Gus attended school in the same one-room schoolhouse as did some of his brothers, just down the road from "The Place" north of New Washington. He attended through grade six. No grade cards survive, but he was well enough educated that he was considered a man of importance in Auburn Township and served as one of the trustees for years.
In his young manhood, Gus worked as a farmhand for Matt Burger during which time he met Mary (Mayme) Wechter who lived with her aunt and uncle on the next farm. They courted and married on January 14, 1903, at St. Mary's (Mother of Sorrows) Church before Rev. J. P. Kunnert. Attendants were Charles Heydigner and Rose Wechter.
According to an account of son Frank Heydinger, Gus and Mayme's first home was in the home of Matt Berger's father whom Gus had helped build a new home, thus vacating his older house.
The August Heydinger family then set up housekeeping on a farm north and east of Shelby. While living there, Genevieve was born and also a boy named George who died at birth. Shortly afterwards they purchased the Locust Grove Farm north and east of Tiro on Auburn Center Road. There were born Sylvester, Herbert, Lucille, Frank, Clement, and Helen. In the spring of 1918 the Amelia Wechter farm on the Tiro-New Washington Road (now Ohio Route 103) came up for sale. It seems that of her two sons, Linus was drafte into World War One and the other took a war related job in the city. With no one to work the farm, Amelia sold it to Gus, and the family moved into it. There Rita and Raymond were born. Gus farmed most of his life until he retired and moved into New Washington.
August was always a civic minded man, having cerved several terms as a Township Trustee and on the township school board. Later he was elected to the board of New Washington High School where he served several terms. In the fall of 1949 he retired from the farm and moved to New Washington. He and Mayme celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in January of 1953 with all their children and about 45 grandchildren in attendance. He died in Mansfield Hospital in January of 1954 of heart failure after three months of hic-cupping. He was buried in North Auburn's Mother of Sorrows Cemetery after services in New Washington's St. Bernard's Church.
Gus loved to sing and was a member of the North Auburn choir. He himself could play the guitar and was instrumental in having Genevieve take piano lessons. Many an evening was spent with her playing piano for the family and their joining in the singing. Walton's anyone???
Mayme herself was one of nine Wechter children. She was born near Norwalk at a small settlement called Puckerbrush - east of Norwalk approximately where Rts. 61 and 601 intersect. Her mother was a Fisher, a first cousin to the Fisher boys from Norwalk who ran a carriage making shop that eventually evolved into Fisher Body Corporation. The August Heydinger family, though, never saw any of that money!