Herbert Charles "Herb" Held

     My best friend—Herbert Held, who was also my Dad, passed away yesterday at Frasier Meadows Retirement Community in Boulder, CO, after declining health this year.  He was 92. 

     He was born in Bridgeport, CT on October 31, 1924.  The same year that Rogers Hornsby batted .424, as he used to remind me.  He was the eldest of 3 brothers.  The other 2, Arnold and Paul, he loved very much.  He graduated from high school in Troy, NY in 1943 and promptly enlisted in the army.  At the enlistment office, in Utica, NY, he was asked if he had a preference for the European or Asian theatre of war, not that he was guaranteed of going anywhere near where he preferred; he indicated Europe.  When told that Europe was not a good place for Jewish POWs (everyone at the time knew of Kristallnacht, which was 5 years earlier), he replied that he would prefer to go to Europe as he had “a score to settle with the Fuhrer.”

     My Dad served honorably in 5 campaigns in Europe: Normandy, Northern France, Ardennes, Central Europe and Rhineland.  After VE day on May 8, 1945, he was asked to remain in Germany to assist in the allied efforts to restore order to Germany, which he agreed to despite having enough “points” to return home.  Although he was fighting in a war, he was still able to hear the 1944 World Series (Browns versus Cardinals) and 1945 World Series (Cubs versus Tigers) through an intricately-established web of wires and coat hangers connected to a war-weary radio he purchased on the black market.

     Following his return home, all of the colleges and universities in the US were completely filled with recently returned GIs, so he began attending school at a women’s college, Russell Sage, in Troy.  He later attended school at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY and law school at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA.

     Following college, he worked for General Electric for 16 years and then went into business for himself as a management/productivity consultant until his retirement in the early 1990s.  His positions took him to Utica, NY, Montpelier, Vermont, where he was also Justice of the Peace, Auburn, NY, where I was born, and eventually to Northern Virginia.

     My Dad had many enjoyments in life: Winston Churchill, the SF Giants, Mel Ott, Carl Hubbell, Willie Mays, French Club, Cigars, the Rocky Mountain Churchillians, the NY Giants football team, Dogs (he did not like cats until he spent 7 months taking care of my cats while I was in Africa with his future daughter-in-law, Jessica), linguini with clams, apple pie, cherry pie, McLaughlin and Company, his friends at The Carillon at Boulder Creek, Vancouver, Cooperstown, San Francisco, Iztak Pearlman, the Marx Brothers, Don Rickles, Redskins Report with John Riggins, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Opera, PBS, BBC.