Jewish (Story of Max and Trude Heller) #AtoZChallenge #WordlessWednesday

Many Americans would not associate people of the Jewish faith with the Southern state of South Carolina.  If you are one of these, prepare for the story of Max Heller.

Spouse and I visited Greenville, South Carolina in February of this year.  Walking around downtown, I started to see plaques.

There were so many, all clustered together I decided to read them.  I was immediately plunged into the story of Max Heller:  immigrant from Austria, escapee from the Holocaust, businessman, city councilman, supporter of integration and eventually Mayor. 

This mostly come about because of a chance meeting when Max Heller was 19, in 1937.  He met a young women from Greenville at a dance and she gave him her address.  But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

Max Heller was born in 1919 in Vienna, Austria.  Growing up in an orthodox Jewish household with his older sister, his mother told him stories of her experiences with pogroms in Poland. His father owned a textile business but suffered during the Depression. 

When the Germans occupied Austria in 1938, Heller's family knew they had to get out.  Heller bought a German/English dictionary and wrote the young woman from Greenville, Mary Mills, whom he had met at that fateful dance. She agreed to help him get to the United States.

Mary helped get him and his family out, and also obtained jobs for him and his sister at a shirt factory once they reached the safety of Greenville.  Much of Heller's extended family wasn't so fortunate.  Between him and his wife (more on her below) they lost some 90 relatives in the Holocaust.

(You can read more about the history of the Jewish community in Greenville here.)

Every good story has to have a love interest.  Enter Trude Schonthal, a young woman whom Max had met at a summer resort (back in Austria) when she was 15 years old.  Trude's family lost their home in World War II, and ended up as refugees in Belgium.  In 1940, she made it to the United States and settled in Greenville, where she met up again with Max Heller.

Max Heller married Trude Schonthal in Greenville on August 2, 1942.

Eventually, Max Heller became Mayor of Greenville.  Many say he was responsible for the renewal of downtown Greenville I showed you in my "D" A to Z post. He fought for the desegregation of Greenville and led the way for the creation of Greenville's mass transit system.  He also continued to battle antisemitism where he found it.

Trude Heller participated in many community and religious organizations and won South Carolina's highest civilian honor, The Order of the Palmetto.  Also, Trude became a Holocaust educator and gave talks to thousands of people, passing along her experiences and fighting Holocaust denial.

Let Mr. Heller tell his story, if you are interested, through this 1998 interview with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. I highly recommend it, although it is long.

Max Heller passed away in 2011 at the age of 92.  

Trude Heller passed away at age 98 in May of 2021.  

And Mary Mills, the woman who helped get Max and his family out of Austria?   Apparently she remained friends with Max Heller but I can't seem to find any more information on her. 

An amazing history that we all should know about.

"J" day on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme:  Exploring South Carolina and the Eastern United States.

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday (although I admit, this wasn't exactly wordless).

A Chance Blown? #blogboost

President Jimmy Carter, who was President from 1977 to 1981, celebrated his 95th birthday this week.

In 2015, he was diagnosed with  stage IV melanoma, highly aggressive.  He spoke for almost 40 minutes at the press conference where he announced his cancer diagnosis, dressed in blue jeans and a blazer.  But he is still with us.

Which leads me to how I blew my chance to see Jimmy Carter back in 2009.

I had gone to Americus, Georgia to visit the nearby Andersonville Civil War POW site and Plains, Georgia, the birthplace of Jimmy Carter.

While staying at a B&B, I was told that Jimmy Carter taught Sunday School every Sunday he was in the area.  He was still doing extensive travel for his charity and foreign relations work, and, when I looked up his schedule, it said online he wasn't going to be at church that Sunday.

I felt a little uncomfortable, being of a different faith, and decided not to go to the service.  The set up was:  service first, then the Sunday School.  You had to go to the service to go to the Sunday School.

If I had gone, I would have seen him, because, as it turns out, he did teach that Sunday.

We had talked about going back to Americus this past April (2019).  Jimmy Carter is still teaching Sunday School, by the way.  What a lesson in Profiles in Courage.

So the obvious lesson of this moment is:  Grab the moment.  Don't let the discomfort of a new experience keep you from a once in a lifetime opportunity.

But there's one more thing I wanted to blog about.

At the 2015 press conference, there was one last surprise.  I have blogged about my family history of pancreatic cancer (on both sides of my family) - an aunt, an uncle, and a great aunt.  It turns out that Jimmy Carter may have the most extensive pancreatic cancer history of any living person.

Pancreatic cancer killed his father, brother and two sisters (all of his siblings).  His mother died from breast cancer that spread to her pancreas.

But, despite all this, he plans to continue working as long as he can.    And, as of right now, he still is.

While I, drawing closer to age 67, waffle about retirement.

I am in awe of Jimmy Carter.  No matter what your politics, this man deserves our respect. 

Due to circumstances, I still may not be able to get away from Americus until next year.  And then - will I try to see President Carter teaching?


We'll see.

Day 5 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge #blogboost

Praying to St. Anthony

Sometimes, the strangest (or should I call it "strange"?) things happen in life.

We were desperate.  My 90 year old mother in law had been rushed to the emergency room (they call it the ED, or Emergency Department) at 1:30 am on Friday in breathing distress.  No one is thinking straight at 1:30 am, I can assure you.  All we knew is that my mother in law's glasses, and another item that was valuable to her well being, had gone to the ED with her.  Then, a nurse had put them into a hazardous waste bag (why? because there was no other bag available).

And then they had vanished.

Family members spent the next couple of days trying to look for the items, even notifying hospital security and the nurses at the front desk of the unit she is in.  They looked and looked.  Nothing.

Today, Sunday, was Sacred Sites Sunday in New York State, where various houses of worship open their doors for several hours and hold open houses.  In our area were a synagogue, a mosque, and a number of Christian churches of various denominations.

I am not Catholic, but my mother in law is. 

I woke up this morning with a vague memory, of what Catholics sometimes do when something is lost and can't be found.  I did an online search and I found it.  Pray to St. Anthony.

I was going to several church open houses anyway.  When we visited my mother in law (who doesn't see well, and these glasses were so important to her well being) we mentioned St. Anthony and right away she said yes, please pray to him. (I also contacted asked the hospital, which is a Catholic hospital, if they could get someone to pray with my mother in law for the return of these objects.

St. Mary of the Assumption Church Binghamton, New York

As it happens, at this church, we talked to a church historian for this and another area church - St. Anthony's (which wasn't open for the open house).  And, in comparing notes, we discovered her husband used to work with my brother in law - in fact they were born one day apart.  So, well, I had prayed already to St. Anthony, but what harm would a reminder prayer do?

We left the church about 4pm.



Well, about 5pm, we got a phone call from the hospital.

They had found her missing items.

You could have knocked this Jewish gal from the Bronx over with a feather, as the old saying goes.