| Johnnie Heim and wife Margaret (Heim) Heim |
| Johnnie Heim and wife Margaret (Heim) Heim came to Dawson in May 1881, bringing their family of six children. All were natives of Pennsylvania. There were relatives of the Jacob G. Heim family and lived with them for a time until they found and bought the farm they wanted. They had shipped a car load of possessions from their former home to this new home in the “west,” Thomas Fenton owned the land joining Dawson on the northwest. This was near the other Heim families and was good soil for farming so Johnnie and Margaret chose this farm and bought it from Mr. Fenton. Part of this land went all the way south to the Nemaha River and later became part of Dawson in the “Heim Addition” to the town. Also part it was land used for the United Evangelical Church building in 1882 and another part of this piece of land was bought by the Cemetery Association for the Heim Cemetery. The home quarter section of the Johnnie Heim farm was passed on to a grandson of his Dr. Harlan S. Heim and Golda (Mountain) Heim, and is now owned by Dr. Heim’s daughter and husband, Donna and Lloyd Epley of Choralville, Iowa. The children of Johnnie Heim and Margaret (Heim) Heim were as follows – Rosa (married Joseph G. Heim), Regina (married Henry W. Heim), Jonas A. (married Ida Emerson, daughter of Dawson”s Dr. Emerson), Charles F. (married Ada Barlow, he became a Minister in the Evangelical Conference), Linda (married Delbert B. Judd, They were the parents of the Drs. J. Hewitt and Delbert K. Judd), Alma (married Will James, a teacher in the Dawson school and later in Lincoln.) All are now deceased. Margaret told her grandchildren how the women used to combine work with pleasure in the early days in Pennsylvania. Since spinning was one the ever present tasks, she would carry her spinning wheel on her back and go calling on her neighbors, and together they spent the afternoon spinning and visiting. Margaret’s spinning wheel is now a prized possession of her great granddaughter Irene (Belden) Irwin of Oklahoma City, who is passed away and hopefully still in that family. (Editors note: It is on this land that the Henry Heim house is still standing and the home of the Pennsylvania Colony Historical Society Museum. The land around the 4 acres of the museum is currently owned by Donna Heim Epley and her husband Lloyd of Choralville, Iowa. It is thru their generosity that this house and museum is made possible.) |