George Heller Interview
History 150 Spring 2016
Conducted by Patrick Heller
The life of George/Mary Heller
March 10th, 2016
Interview Overview: This interview was conducted on March 10th. It took place in person at my grandfather’s apartment. The interview took a bit longer than I had planned. The finishing time was 43m and 34s. I am going to have to cut some of the irrelevant conversation out during the transcription and pull out what I think is the best material. For the interview I bought the iPhone app, Recorder Pro HD. This app turned out to work exceptionally well. It really blocked out all background noise and focused on our voices. I made sure the apartment was quite before conducting the interview.
Interviewee Bio: My Grandfather, George Heller grew up in the USA and married my grandmother Mary Heller. Unfortunately my grandmother passed away so she could not take part in this interview. My grandmother and her cousins came over to the USA when they were 16 because of work opportunities. Briefly after arriving she met my Grandfather around 1957. However, before they met my grandfather served in the navy during the Korean war. He got to visit many places during his time serving and has many cool stories which you will hear during the interview. Happily married my grandmother and grandfather resided in an outer suburb of Philadelphia. Here my grand mom worked for a bakery, and my grandfather was a police officer. I go into his time serving in the police force, and get a sense for how being an officer played a role during the civil war. I hope you enjoy!
Research: First I want to start with the Korean War era. The Korean war was a war between North and South Korea. The United Nations was led by the United states fighting for south Korea, and China was fighting for North Korea, which was also was assisted by the Soviet Union. The Korean War had effected America economically, politically, and militarily. Economically, South Koreas 42 million person population helped our economy in a big way. Because of the United States political dominance over South Korea, it was easy for us to get the Koreas to buy our products. Politically, we took almost complete political control of South Korea. US set up a huge military base in Korea with about 150,000 troops stationed there. We had our solders on news stations, and filled their ports with our war ships. Many of the older Koreans who fought, or lived during that time see us as their saviors. We even have places named after US war heroes there, for example Walker Hill. Finally, the military aspect. Our involvement In this war really boosted the United States military reputation in Asia, especially after our victory over Japan in WWII. Korean geography allowed us to test out a lot of new military weapons. Also the Koreans purchased a ton of US weapons which gave America a large flow of profit.
Next I want to talk about immigration during the 50’s. Immigration in the 50’s was not nearly as tough as it was during the Ellis Island days, if you had the right paper work. However, for a certain race it was not such an easy time. The 50’s and immigration is notorious for what is call, “operation Wet-back”. This operation began in 1954 and was a movement to send thousands of Mexican illegal immigrants back to Mexico. During this time the number of illegal immigrants increased by a rough estimation of 6,000 percent. The main reason for this movement was the disobedience of the labor laws, and the number of American jobs being taken by illegal immigrants.
Interview: PJ- Interviewer, George Heller- Interviewee
PJ: So we are here at the interview and I am going to start asking questions.
PJ: The first question I want to ask is where did you and mom-mom [mom-mom is what I call my grandmother] meet?
George Heller: I met here at a party that a buddy of mine invited me to. I said I didn’t want to go and chill out, he said common I don’t want to go by myself, so I decided to go. At this time your mom-mom lived with her aunt and uncle in Lafayette Hills. When I got to the party I go into the front door, and on the stair case as I entered the front room I saw this little doll baby sitting on the front steps. I asked my buddy who the hunny was sitting on the steps, he said oh, that’s one of the cousins. I said, well I got to meet the cousin. [Interviewee laughs] So I ended up meeting the cousin and from that day forward we clicked it off. Ironically she was dating a marine at the time, that pissed me off [laughter by both of us] I said he had to go. About a year and a half later we ended up getting married, in 1959.
PJ: What made mom-mom move from Ireland to the states?
George Heller: Well P what happened over there in Ireland was when the kids got out of school in Limerick Ireland, [which is coincidental because mom-mom was born in Limerick Ireland, and now we live in Limerick PA.] there was no work for them over there, absolutely no work. So most kids were packing up and heading to England. Mom-moms mother and father were upset. Mom-mom had an aunt and uncle here in America whose names were Bob and Mag Crain, they had a business and they were kind of and were financially able to bring mom-mom and 4 other cousins over.
PJ: what was mom-moms work when she arrived?
George Heller: Shortly after she arrived she was working in Willow Grove, at Horn and Hartis Bakery which was a very popular Bakery in that era. I compare it to people going to Sheetz or WAWA today. Unfortunately it’s not in business anymore. She worked there up until we got married.
PJ: When did mom-mom talk about leaving Ireland, and when did she actually arrive?
George Heller: They started talking about it around 1956 and she came over here around 1957. I met her in 1958, we got married in 1959.
PJ: After you got married and settled down, could you seen any difference in the way she was treated because of her immigrant status?
George Heller: Back in those years there were not to many problems. There were a lot of Irish, Italians, and maybe Polish who were immigrating pretty fluently to the US. There was not too much friction regarding people thinking “oh you are a foreigner, you shouldn’t be here” Unfortunately it is a little different today, and a lot more animosity today regarding immigration then there was back then. It was pretty normal conditions.
PJ: Would you say that mom-moms main purpose in coming over to the States was for a job?
George Heller: Well not necessarily. Her uncle signed papers for her saying he was taking responsibility for her, and in due time she would seek employment.
PJ: Would you say that it was different that you married someone who immigrated over, or was it pretty normal.
George: No, my buddy Pat married mom-moms cousin who was also an immigrant from Ireland. The only thing I got was a lot of appraisal for how cute mom-mom was, particularly when she got pissed off at me. [Laughter] We had no problem. At that time there was really no problem. The Irish and Italian had no problems, unfortunately it was mostly immigrants from other countries. Mainly because most of the Irish and Italian immigrants were here legally. The resentment came from illegal immigrants. The Irish and Italian payed their own way. However, my mother who was born in Ireland moved to Scotland when she was 5 years old, and when she turned 15 her family came over from Scotland. Way back then was a different story then mom-moms time because they had to go through Elis Island. Elis Island had a very bad reputation. My own mother told me when they came through Elis Island they were treated like cattle.
PJ: So from the time your mother came over and the time mom-mom came over, a lot changed in how they were treated, correct?
George Heller: Oh yes, I don’t know why it was so bad. I do not know why it changed but it came to light that the actions and mistreatment of the immigrants had to stop. The few people still alive that went through Elis Island will tell you the same thing my mother told me, it was living hell.
PJ: So I want to move from the immigration topic onto your time serving our country. Could you tell us what you did?
George Heller: I went into the US Navy on March the 11th 1952, the Korean War. They called it the conflict years, I call it war. They can call it whatever they want but there were a hell of a lot of guys that never came back, and won’t be back, it was more than a conflict. I went to Bainbridge Maryland for 13 weeks of boot camp. While I was in boot camp, the second day I was there, I had a chief petty officer who I will never forget, his name was Burros. A great guy. He asked if anyone had any color guard experience. We were all so young, most 18 and some even 17. Anyway, I stepped forward because I did have that experience. Because of that, Chief Burros made me an acting First Class Petty Officer. I had 78 men under me and was responsible for anything they did. I had a great relationship with them. We won many awards which were tough to get. It worked out well, and at the end of 13 weeks I was nominated by the company and voted in as the honor man of the company. That was quite an honor. My whole family came down to take pictures with myself and the commanding officer. After boot camp I was assigned to a destroyer tender. A destroyer tender was like a repair ship. I was on the USS Grand Canyon. Quite a ship. The smaller ships, and destroyers would tie up next to us and we would repair their damage. There were times we would have 4,5,6 destroyers tied up next to us. We had all kinds of personnel on board who could repair ships. We went on a cruise down to Guantanamo Bay. While I was down there I went to 5 days of communication and Radar. This was training for when we went to battle. I would read radar screens, looking for planes, and ships that were near us. From there we were on stand-by 24 hours a day waiting for our orders to sail to Korea, or for that matter anywhere around the world. 1954 we made a cruise into the Mediterranean which was quite interesting. I saw many countries. Pretty much every part of Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, Greece, Cairo Egypt, and many more. However, the one port that was very rewarding to us was Palermo Sicily. They nicknamed this place Torpedo Ally because during the 2nd World War we could not get a ship into that port because the mountains were infested with Germans. It was called Torpedo Ally because there were submarines all in there that would blow our ships sky high. Anyway, when we did get in there in 1954 we has what you could call a mission cruise, meaning we knew countries that were very poor and need help very bad. Palermo was one of them. While we were there we visited an orphanage. One thing I remember that really put a lump in our throats. There was a building and behind it there was a big cyclone fence. Inside of hit the had a big 500 ft. bomb that hit the ground. This was in there school yard. The reason it was there was it during WWII it was sent over and by the grace of God did not ignite. One of the kids did not mind reminding us it was our bomb. The one little guy pointed at the bomb and pointed at me and I knew he was letting me know, we were responsible. This really hit my heart.
PJ: Great response, now I want to touch on your time as a police officer. Can you tell me a bit about that?
George Heller: Yes, my full time work was with the Ambler Police Department. We only covered one square mile and everyone thought oh its little, nothing happens there, but that was not true. We were always action packed. We were right in the middle of two big counties and on the weekends we would always pitch in a take their calls. I worked for a chief, Lester J. Carpenter. Really great guy. My very bad experience was I was assigned a murder case. I had an 11 year old boy who took the life and a 3 year old girl. Her name was Joanie Lynne McCullen. Across the street from her house was wooded area. What happened was the boy took the little girl in the woods and her little brother joey who was 5 went with. The 11 year old had the little girl on the ground and her brother panicked and ran away. He went to get help. She started to holler and the boy beat her to death. What my job was to go to the autopsy and be a witness to it. I have never seen one before. Make no bones about it my stomach was rolling. I’ll never forget this as long as I live and I am not telling you this to make it sound funny but because the guy was sincere about it. This man was outside the room and looked at me and said man you look whiter than what you are supposed to be. [Slight chuckle] He said I can tell you have never seen one of these. I said no sir I haven’t. Anyway, at the time the doctor there was named Dr. Simpson. He wasn’t there yet so the man showed me around inside the room and Joanie was there on the table. That part was not bad until the Dr. Came. He went on and did his thing, but for me the first time seeing an autopsy was tough. I had to take a sample of her hair. I was ok up until I got home that night. Mom-mom was pregnant at the time. I looked at her and I lost it because I was just visualizing this little girl. We ended up going to her funeral. To this day I still see her quite often. I’ll never forget it. Other than that I just had domestic disturbances and stuff like that.
PJ: What was the year you started serving on the police force?
George Heller: 1960-1967
PJ: Ok, so 1960 was a pretty pivotal year for the civil rights movement, would you say that you saw any effects of that during your time serving?
George Heller: I would say no because, Ambler itself was mostly Italian people, but we did have our share of black people. However, they respected us because they knew if they treated us fairly, we would treat them fairly. We had a pretty close relationship. In fact, we had some gentlemen that if we were ever in a pinch and needed help they would jump in and help us.
PJ: That is good because a lot of the pictures during that time with cops and civil rights movements were not very pretty pictures.
George Heller: Absolutely, was not pretty at all.
PJ: So it was not really effected in your area?
George Heller: No, fortunately enough, like I said earlier, that relationship between us was pretty strong. They knew what we expected, and if they got out of line there was nothing we could do.
PJ: Could you see any segregation.
George Heller: Not at that particular time because most of that started after I left there. Obviously there was always problems down south and animosity between the blacks and whites. We were just fortunate that we just got along. But if we did have to make arrests, which we did more than once, we were able to arrest them peacefully right in our own borough. We were equip for that kind of situation.
PJ: Awesome, so I think that wraps it up. I touched on all I needed to, and I want to thank you for being with me and answering these questions in detail and from the heart.
George Heller: I feel honored that you asked me. Thank you.