In Mom’s notes, she added some bits of information she got from conversations with my grandmother Elsa (Dad’s mother.) Elsa recalled that her mother Kathrina had a younger sister Maria who married a man named Hecht and had 9 children. She also added that when she was young she would go to the Hechts’ farm in the summer to help with the children and cooking while others worked in the fields.

In the Frankenhilf book there is a photo from 1900 of a woman and 3 children standing in front of a house with a large barn in the background. The farm is identified as that of Mr. and Mrs. John Hecht. I began to wonder if Mrs. Hecht was possibly related to our family because of what my grandmother had said. Looking through the hints in Ancestry.com, I discovered a 1900 census, listing John and Marria (sp?) E. Hecht, with 4 children and a hired hand. And the names and ages of the 3 younger ones matched the photo! Albert, 6 years old, Amanda, 3, and Carl, 1, who is the baby “Charles” in the photo being carried by his mother. I was very excited to connect this photo to my family! And I have been studying it intently imagining what life might have been like for these early settlers.

The 1910 census lists John and Marie Hecht along with 8 children. The youngest is Walter, age 2, which is the only one my grandmother mentioned to my Mom. (There is also an Brazillian immigration card for Walter Hecht from 1960, listing Eva Mary Englehardt as his mother- I wonder what the story is behind that!) In 1920, the census lists John and Eva Mary Hecht, with 2 more children along with the 6 still living at home. And the “Find a Grave” Index has headstones in St. Michael’s Cemetery, Richville, for both parents: E. Mary Hecht (1870-1940) and John Hecht (1862-1939). His full name was Johannes George Hecht and he was born in Frankenmuth. He married Eva Maria in 1888 and was a farmer in Richville all of his life.

I remember on one of our summer family visits to Michigan in the 1950’s that we went out into the country past acres of corn fields to a farm I can still vaguely picture in my mind. There was a long driveway, a house and a large barn. Who was living there is not clear to me, but it was a relative of my grandmother’s. Maybe it was the farm in the photo! I’d like to believe that it was.