Heinrich Windheim was the patriarch of the New Jersey Windheim Family. He was born on February 25, 1853 in Bremen, Germany to Heinrich Friedrich Ludwig Windheim and Johanne Henriette Ellmers.

A gardener and florist, he immigrated to the United States on April 3, 1875 aboard the ship the Neckar. He is believed to have settled in Hudson County, New Jersey but may have lived with his half-brother Andreas Starke in Brooklyn for a period.

He married Elisabethe Mueller, also a German immigrant, on March 27, 1879 and the young couple lived in North Bergen and Lizzie, as she was known, soon became pregnant. The mother died in child birth and the babe a month later.

Heartbroken, Henry left New Jersey for a time and lived in New York City. It was there in the home of Simon Rothschild that he met the servant girl Margaret Hess from Pennsylvania, perhaps while delivering flowers to the Rothschilds.

Henry and Margaret were married at Zion German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brooklyn Heights on November 26, 1882. While still living in Brooklyn they had a daughter, Henriette Magdalena, born September 9, 1883. Also that year Henry became a naturalized United States citizen.

The young family moved back to New Jersey not long after, first to Union Hill where son John was born in 1885, and then to Secaucus where son Henry was born in 1886, before they finally settled at what they would forever call their home, 428 Franklin Ave. in the town of Franklin, which would later become the town of Nutley.

They lost a stillborn son in 1888, but six more healthy children were born to Henry and Margaret, Anna, Lucy, Conrad, Fred, Arthur, and Clara.

For a period the family lived happily in their home in Franklin. Henry operated a large and successful floral business and also owned a fruit orchard in town.

But suddenly without warning Henry Windheim, patriarch of the Windheim Family, died at the age of forty four in December, 1897. It was a cold day and he was tending to his flowers, making sure that they were out of the frostbitten air, when he collapsed.

He left a a loving wife and large family of eight children, with one on the way, to mourn him, but his legacy is remembered.