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Health & Fitness

FREDERICK HELDRING, PHILADELPHIA BANKER, WHO AIDED JEWS IN WORLD WAR II, DIES AT 89

Those who follow me on the Patch know that I mostly write about Radnor School District and Township issues.  But I hope you won’t mind if I digress a bit today because yesterday, I lost my Father.  

Tom Brokaw has described my father’s generation, those that who grew up during the Great Depression and then went on to fight in World War II, as “The Greatest Generation”.  He argued that these men and women did things not for fame, fortune or recognition, but because it was the “right thing to do”.

And so it was with my father. He was truly a remarkable man; a man of integrity, character, wisdom, honesty and humanity, and maybe surprisingly to some, a lifetime Democrat- early on Nixon’s enemies list- who later switched to being a Republican because of his concern over the financial direction of the country. My family and I will deeply miss him.

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My wife, Peg, was kind enough to prepare the following obituary which I hope you enjoy. 

Frederick Heldring, former chairman and chief executive of the Philadelphia National Bank and vice chairman of its parent, the Corestates Financial Corporation of Philadelphia National Bank, and a leader in the Dutch Underground who helped Jews escape the tyranny of Nazi Germany, died on October 12, 2013 at his home in Wayne, PA.  The cause was advanced liver cancer.

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Mr. Heldring was born in Amsterdam, Holland on March 25, 1924 to Ernst and Marie Bungener Heldring and was the youngest of six children.  His father was president of Nederlandsche Handelmaatshappij, the largest bank in Holland at the time.  His mother was French and died when Mr. Heldring was only six months old when she was struck by an Italian Army truck that swerved to avoid hitting a child.  Her last words were ‘Freekje,’ which is what she called her youngest child.

Mr. Heldring was raised by nurses, French governesses and his father’s sister, Olga, and learned to speak French at an early age.  He later became fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and German.  He became fluent in English by listening to the BBC.  During his interview with the Shoah Visual History Foundation in 1998 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiwOYDKvu3I), Mr. Heldring said his childhood was a happy one and that he was considered his father’s “favorite” perhaps to compensate for the early loss of his mother.  His older brother, Jan, was killed during World War II when his ship was torpedoed by a German submarine, and his sister, Marguerite, died tragically at the age of 18.

Mr. Heldring was 15 years old when Hitler began his advance across Europe.  “I always bicycled back and forth to school,” he said.  “One day, I looked at the bricks over which I bicycled, and said to myself, ‘I cannot imagine that someday these bricks will not be ours, but belong to the Germans.’  Not long after, on May 10, 1940, the Germans invaded, and on May 15, the bricks did, indeed, belong to the Germans.”

In 1943, after Germany had occupied Holland for three years, the Germans conscripted every boy born in 1923 and 1924 to be sent to Germany to work for the war effort.  Mr. Heldring was only 19 at the time.  His father sent him into hiding in northern Holland, where he labored on a farm for months.  Eventually he returned to Amsterdam and began working for a Dutch underground organization called “Rolls Royce (RR)” that was dedicated to helping Jews hide with safe families.  In 1944, he became chief of a spy operation that smuggled reports of German troop movements to the Allies.  His office was around the corner from where Anne Frank’s family was hiding but he did not know that at the time.  During the German Occupation, Holland suffered through the “Hunger Winter” and many, including Mr. Heldring, survived by eating tulip bulbs and potato skins.

After the war ended, Mr. Heldring served in the Dutch marines for three years and studied economics in Amsterdam.  In 1950, he emigrated to the United States after his father introduced him to Clarence Hunter, a vice president with the Bank of New York, who agreed to become his sponsor.  He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 1951.  While studying at Penn, he worked part-time for Philadelphia National Bank (PNB) sorting checks.  After graduation, he worked in the bank’s overseas operations for many years, and eventually became chairman of its subsidiary specializing in overseas trade financing.  In 1974, he was appointed President of PNB and served as its Chairman from 1986 until his retirement in 1989.

In addition to his professional accomplishments, Mr. Heldring was a devoted husband and father of seven children.  In 1953, Mr. Heldring met his future wife, Colette Barr, in Mexico while staying at the Taninul Hotel.  On assignment for his position at PNB, he was there to hone his Spanish skills.  Mr. Heldring admired Colette swimming in the hotel pool, and promptly asked her to dinner.  She was traveling with her mother and both accepted the invitation.  During dinner, he somehow convinced the conservative Mrs. Barr to allow her daughter to remain in Mexico alone and travel with the tall, dashing Dutch banker.  A whirlwind three week courtship followed and they were married within six months.  They later named their Wayne home ‘Taninul’, but it was always affectionately referred to by the couple’s grandchildren as the ‘Rock House’ because of its vast stone exterior.

While at the bank, Mr. Heldring was known as an international leader who traveled extensively promoting the importance of world markets.  He was the first banker to visit the Soviet Union in 1959.  Under his guidance, PNB’s international department became one of the most significant in the United States.  He met with many world leaders, including French President Valery Giscard D’Estaing, several Ambassadors, American Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, and former Vice-President Walter F. Mondale, to name a few.  Mr. Heldring’s affiliations included globally oriented organizations such as the Foreign Relations Council, the Philadelphia Regional Export Expansion Council, and Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities and the Governors Council on International Commerce.

Even as Mr. Heldring traveled abroad, he always enjoyed returning to his home base of Philadelphia, his family and PNB.  During his tenure as PNB’s chairman, he was known for his easy accessibility and his employees delighted in their chairman sitting down with them on occasion in the company cafeteria.  He also implemented Upward Communication meetings in 1977 which afforded employees an opportunity to sit down once a week with members of senior management and discuss their concerns and questions.  “I had the feeling that we - meaning senior managers - did a good job of consulting with the people who work directly for us before we make a decision that affects them.  But we didn’t do that with clerks and tellers.  I felt that these people too had good ideas and should be consulted before doing things that affected them.  I just decided that I wanted to have the ability for one hour a week to listen to employees in any part of the bank and see the bank through their eyes,” said Mr. Heldring at the time.

Despite his accessibility, Mr. Heldring was a formidable employer who also enjoyed a certain formality at the bank and was rarely seen without wearing a suit and tie.  He came to expect nothing less from his employees.  As one former PNB banker recalls: “I was brand new to the PNB Training Program in 1985.  During lunch, I went to the PNB cafeteria to grab a sandwich to bring back to my desk.  Not knowing any better, I left my suit jacket behind.  As I was returning to my desk, the elevator stopped on the 2nd floor, the door opened, and in walked Mr. Heldring.  I said hello….he said hello.  After several seconds of silence, and as my floor approached, he turned to me and simply stated:”We wear our suit jackets between floors.”  I can distinctly remember the feeling I had in the pit of my stomach.  I don’t think I ever took my jacket off again.”

Throughout his career, Mr. Heldring never forgot the suffering he had seen in war-torn Holland and actively worked to reduce poverty in the inner cities.  A pioneer in the concept of investing in the inner city of Philadelphia, he co-founded the Greater Philadelphia Partnership and at one time chaired its international-city task force.  Upon his retirement from PNB in 1989, he became Founder and First Chairman of the Philadelphia Development Partnership (PDP), an alliance of banks, businesses, community-based organizations and government which worked to support affordable housing and economic development efforts of local CDCs.  In the 1990’s, this organization evolved into neighborhood economic development primarily through micro-financing.

In the early 1970’s, Mr. Heldring was a leader in promoting the concept of banks lending directly to underserved neighborhoods.  He co-founded, along with Mr. James Bodine, President of First Pennsylvania Bank, the Philadelphia Mortgage Plan and Philadelphia Rehabilitation Plan, the latter of which made contractor loans to rehabilitate low income housing.  According to Mr. Robert Palmer, who was PNB’s President in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Mr. Heldring was one of the first to fight against the concept of “red-lining” low income neighborhoods considered too risky by most banks.  “Fred fought the idea of red-lining by the banks, arguing that even though houses were in low income neighborhoods, the banks should be encouraged to take risks and lend to those buyers who had jobs and exhibited character.”  Palmer says that this concept, which was a novel one at the time, became the progenitor of the Community Reinvestment Act passed by Congress in l977.  “The Federal Reserve came to PNB to study what Fred had done at the bank” said Palmer, and as a result, other lending institutions were obligated to meet the credit needs of their local communities.

Mr. Heldring’s other roles included acting as chairman of the Philadelphia Council for International Visitors, chairman of the World Affairs Council, and vice chairman of International House.  He was director and former chairman of Executive Service Corps., director of Greater Philadelphia Federation of Settlements, the American Academy of Political and Social Science at the University of Pennsylvania, Quaker Chemical and Quaker Europe, the Elwyn Institute, Thorncroft Therapeutic Center (recipient of the “Statesman Award”) Nagy Foundation, and Nederlandse Resassurantie Groepnv.  He also served as chairman of Main Line School Night, was a former Trustee of Temple University, and a Woodrow Wilson Scholar at Princeton University.

Mr. Heldring served as a board member of Paper Manufacturing Co, Businessmen for Peace in Vietnam and Nuclear Arms Control and was a member of the Executive Committee of the U.S. Council of the International Chamber of Commerce.  He received an Honorary Doctorate from Eastern College in 1995 and was named to their Advisory Board.  He was also the recipient of the Robert Morris Citizenship Award, the highest award presented by the Main Line District Boys of America to a leader in the business community.  During his lifetime, he received a Citation from the Dutch government for his role in World War II, the Boys & Girls Club “Touch a Life” Award, and a Mayoral Citation and City Council Citation in 2000 for his efforts to implement revitalization strategies in Philadelphia’s poorer neighborhoods.

Mr. Heldring was actively involved as national chairman of the Partners of the Americas Foundation and was the chairman of its local chapter, the Pennsylvania-Bahia Project.  With his leadership assistance, funds were raised for a school that was built in Salvador, Bahia and named after him.  In 1979, Mr. Heldring co-founded the Global Interdependence Center, a Philadelphia based non- profit enterprise that seeks to promote free trade and the globalization of capital markets, lobbying in Washington, D.C. and creating a world-class forum for the debate of global policies.  The “Frederick Heldring Award” is given annually to honor those who have demonstrated a commitment to the development of global communities.”  At his death, Mr. Heldring was Chairman Emeritus of that organization.

Mr. Heldring will perhaps best be remembered as a compassionate leader with a common touch.  A former employee, Corliss Boggs, recalls how the PNB chairman would always make a point of visiting every department on Christmas Eve to wish his employees a “merry holiday” starting at the top of the building and working his way down to Trust Operations and the basement vault where she worked.  When the Chairman learned one year that Mrs. Boggs’ department still had a lot of work to process because of another department’s delay “he immediately got on the phone and talked to the head of that department and told them to step on it.  We never saw such a fast turnaround. And we were able to leave earlier than ever that year. What was particularly gratifying was that the following year, he remembered the situation and came down to check that we were getting our work without any delay.  He will always be remembered for the concern he showed for all his employees and for taking the time to let everyone know how important they were to the bank.”

Mr. Heldring was a man of deep faith.  Although he was raised outside of organized religion, Mr. Heldring actively sought a faith to practice as an adult. Mr. Heldring discovered the Swedenborg faith in 1958 and was a loyal member of that church for many years before ultimately converting to Catholicism in 1993.  His Catholic faith deepened with time and Mr. Heldring was often seen by neighbors walking to daily mass in Wayne.  In 2004, Mr. Heldring was elected to the Board of Directors of the Office for Community Development of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and served a three year term.

Throughout their lives, Mr. and Mrs. Heldring (“Opa” and “Grandee”) enjoyed traveling on cherished family trips with their large extended family to such diverse places as England, Portugal, Turkey, France, Jamaica, Bermuda, Holland, Mexico, North and South Carolina, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the Bahamas.  This past summer Mr. Heldring escorted 26 family members to Nicaragua where he delightfully danced the night away with his daughters and granddaughters in the seaside resort town of San Juan Del Sur.

A lifelong soccer fan, Mr. Heldring held the hope that the Dutch national team, KNVH, would win the World Cup during his lifetime.  His family will carry on the tradition of rooting for the Dutch.

Mr. Heldring is survived by seven children Martin (Peg), Jamie (Geri), Alice Ann, Mary Carroll (Billy Donahoe), Teddy (Julie), Louise (John Hummel) and Claudia (Andy Goodrich) and 18 grandchildren,  Frederick, Maryclaire and Caroline Heldring, Balthazar, Anna Colette, and Alexander Heldring, Olivia Heldring, Natalie, Alexandra, Claudia, Elise, and Jack Hummel, Alicia, Cecilia, Frances and Colin Donahoe, and Eleanor and Nelson Goodrich.  Mr. Heldring’s two brothers, Jerome and Alexander, predeceased him and his sister, Henriette, survives him and recently celebrated her 100th birthday.  Colette Heldring died in 2012.

The Funeral home is Devlin, Rosmos, Kepp & Gatcha, 517 South Main Street, Phoenixville.  Donations, in lieu of flowers, may be sent to St. Martin de Porres School, 2300 W. Lehigh Ave, Philadelphia 19132 or Entrepreneur Works, 111 S. Independence Mall East, Suite 810, The Bourse Building, Philadelphia, PA 19106.

The wake will be Tuesday, October 15th, from 6:00 to 9:00p.m. at St. Katharine of Sienna Church, 104 S Aberdeen Ave., Wayne, PA 19087, (610) 688-4584 and the funeral is Wednesday at 10:00a.m. at the same church. 

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