DATE WITH THE PAST
92-year-old comes across his confirmation in a 1943 Reading Eagle
Malcolm P. Heffley is no believer in fate, but that sentiment might be changing
recent believe-it-ornot experience involving a Reading Eagle newspaper published during World War II has left him wondering how in the world it could have happened.
Heff ley, a 92-year-old Berks County native, unexpectedly stumbled across his name in a Reading Eagle published on April 19, 1943.
The discovery in a paper printed more than 77 years ago rekindled a relationship with Berks, where Heffley grew up during the Great Depression.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” said Heffley, who’s retired and lives with family in Northampton County. “It was so strange.”
A stunning find
As Malcolm Heffley tells it, it happened this way:
A neighbor with an interest in history came across the 77-year-old Reading Eagle a while back.
He kept it because it contained an ad that featured a photo of Adolf Hitler.
It read, “Today is Hitler’s birthday. Let’s give him plenty. Buy United States War Bonds.”
The ad showed a large photo of Hitler, a confident smirk on his face, giving the trademark salute.
The gift of “plenty” mentioned in the ad, it’s fair to assume, referred to bombs and other munitions to be purchased with funds from war bonds.
The county’s quota of bonds, according to the ad, was about $18.2 million.
The old Reading Eagle recently made its way around the Northampton neighborhood, eventually landing at Heffley’s house.
He’d grown up in Kutztown, and seeing an old Reading Eagle was a bit like going home all over again.
Indeed, the paper had run stories when the Pennsylvania National Guard unit in Kutztown, of which Heffley was a member, was federalized during the Korean War.
And when he had an interest in the Maple Grove Hotel in Longswamp Township, the business was mentioned now and again in the Eagle.
So, Heffley paged through the old newspaper, thinking
there might be something in there he’d remember.
He wasn’t prepared, however, for what he would find on page 6 under the headline “594 Catechumens Take Vows in Rural Berks.”
There, at the very bottom of the page were the names of 17 persons confirmed at St. Paul’s Reformed Church in Kutztown on Palm Sunday, April 18, 1943.
And, Heffley’s name was one of them.
“Oh, my goodness,” he remembers saying to himself. “There’s my name.”
Heffley remembers every person in his confirmation class, as well as the Rev. Francis F. Renoll, pastor, who conferred the religious rite.
As far as he knows, he and one other person are the only remaining members of the class.
He’s a bit hazy about confirmation day itself, remembering only that the class had to go to the front of the church to take the vows. And, that they had their photo taken outside the church on Whiteoak Street afterward.
Nevertheless, it was an important day in his young life and he has treasured its memory for all these years.
“I still have the photo,” he said.
Berks County roots
Heffley’s life has taken him far from Berks County.
A professional chef and baker, he was chief steward aboard Sunoco vessels hauling crude oil between Philadelphia and Corpus Christi, Texas, for many years.
Though an accident retired him in 1984, Heffley still harbors a deep attachment to eastern Berks County.
He once resided in Krumsville and Lenhartsville. His grandfather, A.A. Fister, owned a hotel in Krumsville. And, on his mother’s side, there is an attachment to the former Hunsicker farm in Maxatawny Township.
Looking back, a part of him yearns for the halcyon days of his youth in Krumsville.
The Heffleys, a self-sufficient Pennsylvania Dutch family, had a vegetable garden. They made their own ketchup and jarred meats.
The family gathered around the radio to listen to the Tommy Dorsey Band and played Hasenpfeffer, a popular card game.
The old homestead had an outhouse and the Heffleys didn’t have a telephone until the early 1950s. Even then, Heffley recalls, it was
a party line shared by a dozen or more families.
Heffley retains the downto-earth lessons he learned at home — self-reliance,
hard work and a respect for others — throughout his life.
Even now, preparing to bake a batch of honey buns
for a local restaurant, he lives by a credo rooted in rural Berks County culture: “You do a good job and you do it right.”