HOT Magazine HOT Magazine - Issue 11, 12 Volume 5 | Page 43

(Article Reprinted from HOT Magazine June 2014 Issue)
Connie in her younger days
B
y any measure, 95 year
old
Constance
“Connie”
Heinecke has led an amazing
adventure filled life. From
living across the street from John F.
Kennedy in Washington DC to being
tour guide to Marilyn Monroe in
Japan to entertaining world famous
boxer Jack Dempsey in her and her
husband’s Hong Kong home. Did I
mention that while living in Malta
where they had a home for 7 years
they were given just 24 hours to
leave the country because the leftist
government believed them to be CIA
spies?
Connie grew up in Philadelphia
during the depression in a family of
7. She inherited her father’s sense of
humor and was known as the “crazy
one” in the family. Her memories of
the depression were the soup kitchens.
Her first job was at age nine selling
peanut brittle her mother made to
office workers in the newspaper
section of town. The candy was
individually wrapped with wax
paper. Because the candy was sticky
her customers complained that the
wax paper stuck to the candy. The
quick thinking youth’s reply was that
you were supposed to eat the paper,
just like the Japanese candies that
were popular at the time which were
wrapped in rice paper. Even though it
was 86 years ago Connie can still name
off all the stops on the train that took
her from her home to the Philadelphia
office towers she sold to.
Connie and Roy
When Connie was 17 a girl from her
school came by her house with a boy
she was seeing and the boy’s brother.
The brother’s name was Roy Heinecke.
Connie and Roy fell in love and were
married in 1942. Neither one of them
had much money even though both
of them worked. Connie’s first job
out of High School was working as
a telephone operator while Roy was
a U.S. Marine earning just 20 dollars
a month. One fateful night Roy won
40 dollars in a poker game and they
decided to use that money to get
married.
While Roy was off to war Connie lived
in Philadelphia and then California.
They had two children, Skip born in
1943 and Bill who was born 6 years
later. When the war ended Roy was
stationed in Japan. Roy told her not to
come due to the bad conditions at the
time but headstrong Connie had her
own ideas. Bravely she sold all they
owned and along with her two young
boys boarded an Oiler ship for the 35
day trip, unannounced, to be with her
husband in Japan.
HOT Magazine
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