The father who wrote home
Granddaughter preserves 150 letters
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Editor’s note -- In a four-part Veterans Day series, The Sentinel tells the story of James Heller, a World War II sailor whose letters home revealed a different side of him to his family.
The series follows his granddaughter’s discovery of the letters, Heller’s Navy training and service aboard the USS Eldorado and what his son learned about his father through the letters.
LEWISTOWN -- Five-year-old Mike Heller shot a charging bear. His 4-year-old brother, Joe, killed a wolf. Both saved their father’s life.
Heller invented the adventure aboard the USS Eldorado, a Navy command ship in the Pacific Ocean. He mailed the story home Dec. 29, 1944, so Margaret, his wife, could read it to their children.
It was one of approximately 150 letters Heller sent home during World War II. Some described military training or the daily frustrations of shipboard life. Others concerned money, baseball, football, Christmas presents and children growing up without their father.
At 36, Heller had entered the Navy, leaving his wife and three children in Mifflin County. His letters recorded a man’s struggle to master a new profession while remaining part of the family he had left behind.
Learning a new life
By July 1944, Heller was training in Newport, R.I., for his assignment aboard the Eldorado. He had left behind Margaret, whom he called Peg, and their children, Jane, Mike and Joe.
On July 3, he wrote that he’d applied for radar duty. The Navy was preparing the Eldorado for eventual deployment to the Pacific, although Heller still had training ahead of him.
He was also trying to arrange a weekend visit home. A taxi from Newport to Providence would cost $3, and the train connections through Harrisburg to Lewistown left little room for delay. He calculated the departure times and decided to attempt the trip.
A week later, he was back in Newport, exhausted. “I’m really dead on my feet tonight,” he wrote July 10.
He was expected to receive Morse code at 18 words per minute while learning to type -- a demanding assignment for someone still mastering both skills. He attended five classes daily and hoped to spend his nights studying.
His classmates already had a week’s head start. Heller wasn’t convinced he could catch them.
“Do you have any suggestions on how to learn to type in one lesson?” he asked Peg.
Two days later, the dots and dashes were giving him fits. He could distinguish some characters, but as the lessons continued, their sounds became increasingly difficult to separate. By the end of one class, he complained that every letter sounded the same.
In his July 12 letter, he tried to explain what was troubling him.
“I don’t think I’m homesick; it is just that I miss you all so very much.”
Even after a discouraging day of training, he found time to ask about Mike, Joe and Jane. He wanted to know whether the boys were behaving and how his darling Jane was doing. He had shown his family photograph around and was proud of it.
Keep me in their minds
As summer gave way to fall, Heller worried he might not see his family again before the ship departed for the Pacific.
In a Sept. 8 letter, he described a dream. “I had a dream of being home this afternoon, and it was so real I could almost touch Mike and Joe.”
He had hoped for a few hours with the boys before the ship departed. Instead, he continued his duties while the Navy determined where the Eldorado would go next. The separation troubled him in ways that occasionally surfaced between ordinary descriptions of shipboard activity.
On Oct. 5, while standing radar security watch aboard the Eldorado, Heller wrote a request that revealed how much he worried about being forgotten. “Keep me fresh in their minds so they don’t forget about me,” he told Peg.
He described men looking for opportunities to earn additional money while the ship remained in port. He considered taking work at a nearby sugar refinery, hoping to send more money home.
His thoughts wandered to the family he couldn’t see. He imagined himself back in the family’s front room, with Margaret reading The Post while he studied the coming football games. He remembered picking football winners for a pool at the Viscose plant.
A father’s instructions
On Oct. 19, Heller addressed a letter directly to Jane.
He wanted to know whether the high school football team had won. He asked who from Yeagertown was playing and predicted the team would improve considerably when Mike and Joe were old enough to join it.
He also wanted Jane’s school marks sent to him.
Then came instructions about her religious obligations, looking after her brothers and obeying her mother. Joe, Heller wrote, had been tormenting the family cat.
Heller reminded Jane to be good to the boys despite their mischief. He signed the letter, “As always your loving Dad.”
A PostScript asked about Notre Dame football. He had been buying two newspapers a day, hoping to find scores, but complained that the coverage concentrated on Pacific Coast teams. Those were the concerns of a father trying to keep up with a household he couldn’t supervise.
That October, illness temporarily interrupted his work. Heller spent time in a Navy hospital with a fever that reached 102 degrees. He assured Peg that he was recovering and wanted to return to the ship. Even there, his letters continued.
On Oct. 21, he described listening to President Franklin D. Roosevelt address the nation while a football game played on another radio. He wondered whether his family was hearing the same speech.
By December, he was back aboard the Eldorado, working in radar and hoping his efforts would earn advancement. He sent photographs home and asked whether the children still recognized him.
Christmas across the ocean
As Christmas approached, Heller’s letters turned increasingly toward the celebration taking place without him.
On Dec. 21, Heller asked about Joe’s birthday and whether the boy had received a large cake. He imagined the children preparing for Christmas and trusted Peg to make the holiday special. He was writing while other sailors gathered around sardine sandwiches. His thoughts returned to the boys.
“One thing I have thought of very often lately is Mike & Joe snuggle up to me at night time when going to sleep,” he wrote.
He asked Margaret to kiss the children for him.
Three days later, on Christmas Eve, Heller tried to imagine the scene at home. He began: “Christmas Eve - no it can’t be.”
He pictured Peg arranging presents, the familiar big red ball atop the tree and the children sleeping before Christmas morning. He remembered the previous Christmas, when sleigh bells had convinced the children that Santa Claus was coming.
The scene around him couldn’t have been more different. He’d spent part of the day on a beach, playing a game resembling water polo with other sailors. The weather was warm enough that he’d gotten a tan.
Back home, he knew Margaret would have a long night preparing for three excited children. He wanted every detail afterward.
“Kiss them extra special tonight,” he wrote.
Five days later, he composed the hunting adventure for Mike and Joe. In his story, the boys saved their father from the bear and wolf. He made them capable, courageous hunters, old enough to protect the man who was supposed to protect them.
Heller had shared the hunting story with other sailors, but the people he most wanted to entertain were thousands of miles away. He knew Margaret would read his words aloud. He trusted her to give the boys their father’s adventure, his humor and his affection. Still, he wished he could be there.
“I would love to give them these stories firsthand, but I’m sure you’ll do a good job for me, won’t you, darling?”