Betty Heichelbech: The secret ingredient is THIS

Betty Heichelbech’s first gig in a bar and restaurant began when the Jasper Country Club reached out to her mom asking if the 14-year-old would like a job.

Her family’s 14th Street house was close to the country club so the teen took up their offer and began walking over to wash dishes. “I started serving customers and pouring coffee and meeting with all the rich and famous people of Jasper,” Betty said.

In the 1940s, 14th Street was about as far north as Jasper went.

“15th Street wasn’t even there when I was a kid in Jasper. We didn’t have running water or indoor toilets,” Betty said before adding that it’s hard to imagine those times these days.

“My goodness that’s going way back. I never thought I’d get on that subject,” she added while peering into the past from her chair in the activities room at the Northwood Retirement Community.

As much as the 91-year-old loves to reminisce and tell stories about her life — she laughed a couple of times during our interview when I asked if she needed to take a break — there are plenty of stories and memories floating around the community about her as well. Last year, when a notice was posted in The Herald inviting people to send cards to Betty for her 90th birthday, she ended up receiving 132. Many had personal messages from former employees the restaurant and bar Betty and her husband, Walter (Jerk), started in 1952, Heichelbech’s.

Besides the joy of all the people who reached out to her on her 90th, Betty was surprised at some of the common memories. One that popped up several times was how she would hold personal conferences with employees in the walk-in when she had to correct them. “I didn’t know everyone knew what was going on in the there,” she laughed through some tears of joy.

Recently, Betty directed the cooks at Northwood on the proper way to make Heichelbech’s famous turtle soup. A soup that has been featured in national and local newspapers as well as magazines and books without ever having the recipe revealed.

These days, only a handful of people know the secret to the soup but in a way, it began at Ferdinand’s Oasis Bar.

Jerk — as everyone knew him — and Betty lived over the Oasis, or Hap’s Place, when they first got married. They both worked there part-time; Jerk was a bartender and Betty was a waitress.

Jerk also worked at one of the local furniture factories and for Betty, the time at the Oasis was old-hat since she had been working in restaurants and bars since the country club had called.

“A lot of times we worked really late,” Betty said about that time at the Oasis.

Sometimes they stayed open as late as three in the morning on Sundays. “Of course, that means you’re there longer cleaning up,” she explained.

On those Sundays, the couple would stay up to head over to St. Meinrad for early Mass and then sleep during the day. One Sunday, the couple woke to a smoke-filled apartment after a rock crashed through their window. Someone had noticed the bar was on fire and knew there were families upstairs.

Unfortunately, as the families attempted to get out of the building through the stairway they found their way blocked by the fire.

“Our apartment was next to the flat roof of the bar,” Betty said. “You could get on top by climbing through one of our windows.”

The three families escaped the fire and smoke through a window onto the roof where they waited for rescue. Betty was nine-months pregnant with the couple’s son, Rodney, at the time.

“So, there was big old pregnant me and everyone else waiting but no one was coming, no one was fighting the fire,” Betty said. “So my husband jumped off the roof and got someone to help.”

Eventually, Jerk returned with help and the families were able to use a ladder to get down off the roof. Everyone except for nine-month pregnant Betty. “Nobody could figure out how to get me off the roof,” she explained. “So, I got myself down [going down the ladder on her own].”

With the damages done to the Oasis and the smoke-filled apartments upstairs, Betty and Jerk decided to move back to Jasper into the home where she grew up.

Jerk started working at the Indiana Desk Company as well as at the Walmar Cafe at the corner of Main and Third Street (now the Fritch Law Office). Across the street from the factory was Ray’s Tap Room, a speakeasy during prohibition that was now a place for factory workers to get a beer and sandwich.

The owner, Ray Giesler, was looking for someone to take over the spot.

“It was in bad shape,” Betty remembers. “But Jerk said, ‘you know Betty, we can do this.'”

Ray wanted to get out from under the bar pretty bad so Betty and Jerk were able to work out a deal and pull together the money to take over with a five-year lease. After a week of hard work cleaning the place up, Jerk and Betty opened up as Heichelbech’s in 1952.

The couple moved into the living quarters at the bar and while Jerk kept his job at the factory, Betty ran the bar. “There were four rooms, the bathroom and the kitchen and that was enough room for us and the baby (Rodney),” Betty said.

They started with the same menu that Ray had carried and got a beer and wine license in their own name. They served burgers, chili, noodle soup and drinks for lunch until they were able to expand to begin offering dinner options.

Betty and her cousin, Maggie Burger, kept things going until Jerk was able to quit working at the factory. He started working behind the bar full time and the business took off.

“Business got pretty good and we needed another cook so my Aunt Anna (Hopf) came to work for us,” Betty explains.

Then came the turtle soup.

With the three ladies — Betty, Maggie and Anna — running the foodservice and Jerk bringing the people in because of his bartending, things were going well for the young business. That’s when Jerk, who loved turtle soup which had been a staple at the Oasis, decided he wanted to add it to Heichelbech’s menu.

“We didn’t know how to make it,” Betty laughed.

They began to experiment with different recipes but Jerk didn’t like anything they were coming up with.

“He’d try it and say, ‘this isn’t it’ or ‘this isn’t any good,'” Betty said. “This went on and on and on. We must have made 10 batches of soup.”

In one batch, they added some chili powder and felt like that was better, but it still wasn’t quite right.

“Then one day, Aunt Anna said, ‘let’s put some of THIS in there,'” Betty said laughing. “So we put some of THIS in there and that’s the secret ingredient. By God, THIS was what made it work.”

They began pumping out 28 gallons of turtle soup at least twice a week; sometimes three times. It was strenuous, taking about two days to cook, but its popularity grew.

This led to a feature in a book on unique eateries in Indiana called Road Food and Good Food as well as local notoriety with newspapers like The Herald, Evansville Courier, Indianapolis Star, Louisville Times and nationally in the USA Today and an airline magazine. Betty has a scrapbook with all the different articles written about Heichelbech’s over the years.

When they first started making it, farmers would bring turtles in all the time to sell to Betty. The fresh, live turtles would be put in the basement where they were kept in an old coal bin but this led to complications.

The trash was down there as well and one time, the trash collector opened the door to find snapping turtles strutting around openly in the basement. “The coal bin door didn’t work very good and they could push against it and get out,” Betty said. “Johnny Harker had a wagon and two horses and he’d come to pick up the trash. He saw those turtles and was scared of them, so he quit us.”

They also made fried turtle on Fridays and always sold out. “People knew we had it and they’d call first thing in the morning and say they wanted so many pounds,” she said adding they usually made about 30 pounds of it.

The turtle train took a bad turn when the board of health told Betty she couldn’t use the wild-caught turtles anymore. Betty tried to replace the meat with sea turtle meat she was able to purchase from a supplier but that didn’t go so well. “Oh God, it smelled so horrible,” she said. “You could smell it all the way up to the church.”

So for a long time, the soup was off the menu until they were able to start making mock turtle soup.

Heichelbech’s continued to build on the reputation of great food and a good time. In 1969, Betty and Jerk found out Jerk had lung cancer. They drove back and forth to Louisville for treatments for 14 weeks. Jerk passed away in February of 1970.

Betty continued working at the restaurant with her son and kept it going until Rodney had heart surgery. His health forced him to slow down in 1992. The next year, Betty sold Heichelbech’s to Ron and Maxine Kunz, who kept Heichelbech’s open until 2017.

Longevity runs in Betty’s family and at 91, she’s looking forward to a few more years kicking around telling stories from her long life in Dubois County and at Heichelbech’s.

Her daughter, Beth Browning, continues the cooking tradition with her business, Betty’s Daughter Catering. A catering business that works with small events.

“Restaurant work is hard,” she said adding that she loved all the people that came to the restaurant and all the fun times they had.

When Betty directed the turtle soup preparation at Northwood, her niece brought the special ingredient — THIS — but put it in a different ingredient container so it would remain a secret. Everyone enjoyed the special treat of the old favorite but for Betty, turtle soup isn’t her favorite.

“It’s okay. I got so sick of it,” Betty laughed.