I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Dorothy Heinemann in the home she shares with her husband, Bill (who clearly still makes her heart go pitter patter), high above Austin Creek in western Sonoma County. Born a middle child of six on a Wisconsin farm, the highlight of Dorothy’s childhood was spending time with her grandmother. A prolific writer, Dorothy shared several memoirs with me, including “Everyone Needs a Grandma,” in which she recounts, “You made each of us feel special and loved. Never did I hear you say a critical word about anyone. You were the most understanding person I ever met.” She was also proud of both the special relationship and the red hair that she shared with her Grandma, who “…would bake me special cookies and let me have her sewing scraps to make clothes for my doll.”
Dorothy is a gifted woman who clearly thrives on adventure. Her first big break was at age seventeen when she was awarded a college scholarship. She recounts that she “left home and never looked back.” Following her mother’s advice, Dorothy attended a teacher’s college, but after a short time she concluded it wasn’t the profession for her so she went to work in a Milwaukee defense plant inspecting superchargers (point of wisdom: if you don’t like what you do, don’t do it!) Then one day, like many primarily male youth of her generation, Dorothy’s life changed forever when the bony finger of an “Uncle Sam Wants YOU” poster grabbed her attention. In the blink of an eye, undeterred by the reaction she expected from her mother, Dorothy stepped into the recruiting office and signed up!
Little did Dorothy realize in July of 1944, after completing boot camp, she would be one of only four women (all redheads) to be selected among several thousand new female recruits to serve in the signal corps (responsible for military communications) and participate in “one of the greatest secrets of all history” by working as a cryptologist at Arlington Hall to help decipher the Japanese code. So secret was her mission that she maintained silence regarding her assignment “under the penalty of death” for treason until after the work was declassified in 1989. They were repeatedly reminded how important their work was to the war effort, but at the time she didn’t fully realize this and “as time went on, I almost forgot my experience. I consigned it to the remote and distant past…”
After serving ten months at Arlington Hall without leaving the base, Dorothy’s unit was granted leave to attend the funeral parade for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As she recounts in a memoir, “the funeral procession moved slowly past the spectators, most of whom were in tears…I remember the crushing sadness…for once I recognized the unfolding of an historic event. An era had passed by, and such a one as our dead president would never come again.” And then, “…on August 6, 1945, the atomic bomb was dropped, the world changed forever, and the war was over. By the end of August I was in Dallas, Texas and another adventure loomed before me…” She met an Air Force supply sergeant by the name of William Heinemann, two years her junior, “who looked quite sharp in his uniform…”
Dorothy reports the adventure that shaped her life the most was marrying a career air force man (yes, Bill). They had two children. Their son was born just 10 months after the wedding, and daughter followed 7 ½ years later. Dorothy continued to work and pursued further education through the years. Some of her experiences included computer operations for the U.N. and working for several newspapers including two in Texas and the Marin Independent Journal after moving to California in 1959. She went on to obtain a Bachelor’s degree in management from Sonoma State University at the age of fifty-five and worked as a bookkeeper at Hastings College. Dorothy misses the writing class she used to attend in Guerneville but continues her adventures through independent writing, and both reading and sharing her works. She even has her own blog: grandmadottie.blogspot.com. Check it out!
When asked what she would change if she could live life over, Dorothy pondered the question a moment before asserting she would have waited longer before starting a family after marrying Bill. She also would have stayed home with her children when they were young rather than working. A self-proclaimed obsessive-compulsive, her advice for younger generations is to “go with the flow” of life, or borrowing from John Lennon, to “let it be.” The value Dorothy places on maintaining a good sense of humor has served her well through the years, and she credits Bill with helping her keep things in perspective (including the stove and sink she’s been known to cuss at, but that’s another story…) And her secret to a life well lived? Chocolate, of course!
