CHIMPS IN THE KITCHEN
LIONS IN THE CELLAR

Excerpts from a book by Anne Maier Heldenbrand co-written and published by Storyworks

The Royersford Spring Company, Royersford, Pennsylvania as it looks today.

In January 1937 Ladd’s father, Carl Heldenbrand, came to Royersford, Pennsylvania to work with my father, John Maier, at the Royersford Spring Company. My grandparents invented the first coil spring. Mother always said that Grandmother Maier really did it, but those were the days when women weren’t recognized for their business acumen! But she worked alongside grandfather, first in Trenton, New Jersey and then when they moved to Royersford, Pennsylvania....

I can remember the last time I ever got spanked by my father. There weren’t any girls on Spring Street, so I played basketball and baseball right along with the boys. We had a number of boys around my age and younger; I was a real tomboy growing up. One day I was playing across the street, and we were having such a good time. The fire station whistle blew every night at five-o’clock as a safety check, but it was also a signal for families. Children had to go home for supper at five o’clock. They could be out wherever they wanted because it was a small town, but when they heard that fire whistle they had to come home. It was suppertime. I hadn’t been paying attention. Finally I left because I had to go to the bathroom.

Anne at age 4, Royersford, Pennsylvania.

My heart sunk down to my feet as I walked into the house. My family was all sitting around the table eating. Daddy said sternly, “Anne, come here.”

“Just a minute, daddy,” I replied, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Anne, come here!” daddy repeated.

I went and stood beside his chair. He asked, “Do you know what time it is?”

“Yes, it’s a little after five o’clock,” I replied.

“And where are you supposed to be at five o’clock when you hear the whistle?”

“I’m supposed to come home.”

“Well, you didn’t come home, and so I have to spank you.”

He took his hand, which was square, just like mine except bigger, and gave me one swat on the bottom. It didn’t hurt, but I was humiliated because Jack and Paul were home from college, and Jane was home from nursing school. Daddy gave me a spanking right in front of them all! I burst into tears and ran upstairs. I was never late for a meal again!

I’m sure, knowing daddy, it hurt him as much as me, but he did get his point across. I can’t remember ever being spanked except for that one time. For bad behavior I would usually have to go to my room or not be allowed to go out to play for a while, but not spanked in front of Jack, Paul and Jan.

Warren Buck lived in Camden, New Jersey, and was an importer of wild animals. He supplied zoos with wild animals. Ladd was interested in wild animals, so they became friends. Whenever Ladd had vacation from veterinary school, he went to Camden and visited Buck and worked with the wild animals. By the time he was a senior, Ladd had learned quite a lot from Warren that was put to good use back at Ohio State University Veterinary School. Whenever the school got an unusual wild animal, they called Dr. Rudy. Dr. Rudy would then call Ladd to come in.

On one occasion two lion cubs came in from the Columbus Zoo. They were almost mature but still the size of cubs. They had been mistreated and were malnourished. The cubs were in extremely poor shape, both having umbilical hernias and pneumonia. They thought that they would have to put them to sleep. The Columbus Zoo asked Dr. Rudy if he would do surgery because they figured maybe there was a slight chance they would survive. Zoo handlers reasoned if the cubs didn’t make it they didn’t expect them to anyway, but if they did, that would be great.

Dr. Rudy asked Ladd if he would like to help because he knew that Ladd was interested in working with wild animals. Ladd said, “Sure!” The next thing I knew, Ladd said to me, “Dr. Rudy will be here in about a half an hour, so let’s get the kitchen ready.” (The kitchen table was the Formica type we used to have in those days.)

“The what?” I gulped.

“The kitchen,” Ladd replied. “We’ll operate on the kitchen table.”

They gave the lions some anesthetic, but not a full dose. Neither Dr. Ruby nor Ladd knew how much anesthetic a sick lion cub should have in order to keep it anesthetized. They tied rope clothesline around the legs of the table and the other end around the cubs’ paws. They decided they better give a bit more anesthetic when one of the lions yawned and stretched and popped off every rope! They then performed surgery on the two lion cubs on our kitchen table while I watched.

The cage they had for the cubs was very large and would not fit in the house. It was for a full-size lion. Fortunately we were able to fit it in our back yard, which was secured by a fence. In the meantime, until the cubs were ready for the cage, Dr. Ruby and Ladd put the cubs in our cellar. Every time Ladd or Dr. Rudy went downstairs the cubs would have a fit. They would growl, bare all their teeth, and become very menacing. For some reason they didn’t behave this way towards me, so I had the job of feeding them and keeping them happy. The cubs would come over to me, rub against my leg, and I would pet them. They acted just like domestic cats with me. They were smaller than a shepherd dog, but their attitude more than made up for their size!

We fed the lion cubs horsemeat Ladd acquired from the vet school. The school had to get rid of it after they were finished with their practice surgeries for the vet students. I think they had a way to do this, but Ladd asked them if he could have some of it to feed the lion cubs, and Dr. Rudy said of course he could. Ladd put pieces of horsemeat in a big metal pretzel can and brought it home. One day a student asked, “Ladd, what are you doing with all of that horsemeat?”

“Oh, I’m just feeding a couple of lions,” Ladd replied.

As Ladd was leaving, when he was out of sight, he heard the fellow say, “Anybody but Ladd, I wouldn’t believe it, but I believe Ladd!”

One day, while I was in the yard hanging up laundry, the meter man came to read the gas-meter in the cellar. As he was going down the steps, I went to the door and called out: “Oh, by the way. There is a lion at the bottom of the steps, but she is sound asleep. Just step over her.” (She was under anesthetic, but I didn’t think to say that.)

I heard his steps stop.

The meter-man called up, “What did you say?”

“There is a lion cub at the bottom of the steps, but she is asleep. Just step over her, read the meter and come back up,” I reassured him.

I listened for the man’s steps, and he immediately came right back up fast.

We did not have the meter read for a couple of months. When a new meter man finally did arrive, he asked incredulously: “Do you still have... I don’t believe it... the previous gas man wrote ‘a lion cub at the bottom of the steps’?”

“Well, there was,” I assured him.

Living on the Edge

Excerpts from a book by Frank C. Rodway co-written and published by Storyworks

...By the time I was thirty eight years old and applied for the position of Superintendent of the Maine Maritime Academy, I had sailed most of the sea lanes of the world, transited all major waterways and canals, and viewed the lands and waters on either side of both the Greenwich Meridian and the equator.

As I have matured, I have observed that much of life involves doubt, insecurity and loneliness. It is how we navigate these challenges that test our mettle. The following pages mark my passage through life’s waters to date—living on the edge.

Seventeen years old in my one suit.

I was just 16, but I already had a career at sea serving on three different vessels. I had driven a bone truck for some months and was well experienced in hotel management. Now it was time to get a real job—the shipyard!

Right after school ended, I went to the shipyard employment line in South Portland and waited for my turn. The shipyard was the hottest game in town; everyone worked there. The wages were high by any standard and the work exciting. There was always a line of people seeking employment.

When my turn came, I handed in the application I had filled out while waiting in line. The man looked at it quickly and said, “You can’t work here.” “Why?” I replied, and he said, “Because you’re not old enough.” I inquired as to how old one needed to be, and he said, “Seventeen.” I asked if I could have another application, and he gave me one. I returned to the end of the line and redid it, changing my date of birth by one year. When I reappeared before him a few minutes later, he asked what I wanted to do. I don’t recall what my answer might have been, but surely I must have said that I would do anything, whereupon he sent me off to one of the piers to start life as a rivet passer.

I was sent to a staging high up on the interior hull of a liberty ship under construction. My job was to catch, in a conical container, the red hot rivets tossed to me from a forge below, take them out with tongs and place them in the holes so the riveters and holders could hammer them in place. It was hot work in the summer heat. Once I missed the toss and the rivet hit me in the stomach. I had a tee shirt on and I jumped back when it hit and was not burned, but there was a hole in my shirt.

Car pooling was an absolute necessity, if one had a car at all, as I did. I worked the day shift and remember traveling back and forth from work, with others, in my Model A. I don’t now recall who my passengers were.

Summer passed, the war raged, school beckoned and I was restless. The thought of returning to a regimen of study was paralyzing—so I didn’t.

One day I was downtown looking at the various enlistment signs which were everywhere. One outside the Chapman Arcade caught my eye. It said, “Want action? Join the Coast Guard.” I did! It was not very complicated. I filled out the application, went for a physical and returned home with a form for my parent’s signature. At some point that day or the next, I said to my father, “Guess what I did today?” He asked, “What?” and I said, “Joined the Coast Guard.” He said, “You did what!?” He wasn’t hard of hearing; he simply wasn’t ready for that. My brother George was already at sea in the merchant marine or studying for an engineer’s license at Fort Trumbull, Connecticut. I needed to be part of what was going on.

Over my mother’s protest, Dad signed the papers and another chapter of my life was about to begin. Years later I asked Dad why he signed the form and he said, “I didn’t have a choice.” I sold my Model A for $125 to another yard worker, wrapped up my affairs at home, in the best way a seventeen year old does, and got ready to leave for a Coast Guard receiving station in Boston....

Frank’s singed hair from the Dean Reinauer explosion.

I left the tanker Amoco Louisiana to come home for Christmas in 1969, and was scheduled to rejoin her in Portland the day after New Years. As planned, I did rejoin the ship after the holidays and took charge of the deck watch while she was berthed in South Portland discharging cargo to the Dean Reinauer (a small coastal tanker). We were discharging cargo, from the starboard side to the terminal tanks while also transferring highly explosive “refined product” such as gasoline, diesel oil or heating oil from the port side to the Reinauer.

Shortly after I assumed the watch, an explosion erupted aboard the small tanker. It was my first experience with a shipboard explosion. Believing that a fire could follow, we sounded the fire alarm, broke out the fire hoses, and proceeded to do what had to be done in a fire emergency. We quickly learned that a crew member on the Dean Reinauer had not been able to escape and was trapped. I, along with two other people from the ship, climbed over the rail to the small tanker and attempted to locate the seaman and bring him out safely. But we couldn’t find him, and soon a second explosion rocked the little ship, knocking me unconscious. There was no flame, and I don’t recall any heat. When I came to after momentarily being knocked out, I was not disoriented. I knew where I was. I walked up to the wheelhouse of the smaller ship, but the doors were contorted due to the explosion, and I was unable to open them. But there was a glass window, and I took my fist and punched through the window and climbed out that way. Luckily I was wearing the leather gloves we all wore as part of our working gear. The only injury I sustained was the loss of some high frequency hearing in my left ear that continues to the present day.

After I was able to get off Reinauer and return to the Amoco Louisiana, we continued fire-fighting operations. By that time the South Portland Fire Department arrived. There was much havoc and considerable confusion as one might expect from a tanker explosion. At some point someone looked at me and said, “You need to go to the hospital!” I said, “No, I don’t.” They responded, “Yes, you do.” So off I went to the hospital. I told the Dr. Bonney, my personal physician, that I was all right. There are others here that need attention more than I. He said, “That’s what they all say just before they die.” He examined me, and determined that, other than being badly bruised and with a lot of singed hair, I was all right to go home.

One person, the one we had thought had been trapped, was fatally wounded. I think I was the only one injured in any noticeable way. Because of that incident I was awarded, along with several other people, the Maritime Commission’s highest award to merchant sailors. I asked Congressman Peter Kyros, whom I both liked and disliked, to present the award, and he did. The award ceremony was in his office with Barbara attending. While I didn’t have any objection to the award, I did think it was a little over done. Kyros had been part of my legal team in the litigation between me and the Maine Maritime Academy.

When the explosion occurred, many of our ship’s crew just walked off the ship, out of fear, rather than doing what was expected of them—to fight the fire and provide whatever support was necessary. And the captain was almost equally as useless. I think that I performed adequately and did what I was expected of me—what I felt responsible for doing. But the lack of competence, attention to duty and discharge of responsibility by large numbers of the crew was pathetic. So pathetic, in fact, that when there was later awards ceremony someplace in Virginia after I rejoined the Louisiana, I declined to attend. I expressed disgust with some members of the crew who abandoned their responsibilities to the ship and then stood up to be recognized. I thought their behavior was fraudulent. Heroism is a particular quality few people get to exercise, and they should be recognized when they do act courageously.