Hellegers-Hettema Family Tree

Oscar Hettema

May 29, 1911 - November 24, 2010
Online Obituaries

Oscar Hettema 99,of Punta Gorda passed away on Wednesday November 24, 2010. Funeral arrangements entrusted to Kays-Ponger Uselton Funeral Home Port Charlotte Chapel.

Funeral Information

Visitation will be held on Thursday December 2, 2010 from 6PM -8PM at Kays-Ponger Uselton Funeral Home 2405 Harbor Blvd Port Charlotte Fl 33952
Funeral service will be on Friday December 3, 2010 at 1:00PM from the Christ Community United Methodist Church. visitation at the church will be from 12:30PM -1:00PM Burial with military honors to follow at Restlawmn Memorial Gardens Port Charlotte.

-- http://www.kays-ponger.com/obits/obituaries.php/obitID/160314

RE-DISCOVERING HARBOUR HEIGHTS;.(B SECTION)
Sarasota Herald Tribune
| January 20, 1999 | Copyright

Longtime Harbour Heights resident Oscar Hettema, originally from Passaic, N.J., has seen much of Florida grow from thousands of acres of undeveloped scrub pine to the growing municipalities of today.

In 1962, appointed director of Building, Planning and Zoning by the Charlotte County commissioners, it was he who wrote the first building permit for the General Development Corporation under the new building, zoning and planning regulations.

"That year, we issued less than 100 for the entire year, but for the rest of the '60s, we dispensed that many and more each month."

When the 88-year-old Hettema came to Tampa after World War II to work alongside his father in the building industry, the housing market was just beginning to boom. The two worked side by side, he as foreman and his father as superintendent, for the largest construction company in the area. He attended engineering classes in the evenings at the University of Tampa.

His previous experience as a Navy Seabee had given him extensive training under fire in the building of air strips and bases. Hettema served his country from 1942 to 1945, retiring as a warrant officer. He spent 31/2 years in the North and South Pacific and participated in two Marine landings, one in the southern islands and the other on Okinawa. He accumulated a couple of Bronze Stars along the way.

He had married Alice, now deceased, during the war and, when he returned, he took a position with the Southern Gulf Utility Company in 1946. Subsequently, he served as city manager of Dade City and Winter Haven for 14 years.

In July of 1961, Hettema was asked to come to Harbour Heights as development manager of a company planning to install a water and sewer system. He was picking up the pieces of the now defunct developer, the Charlotte County Land and Title Co., which had declared bankruptcy, leaving more than half of the platted area undeveloped because of changes in state and federal rulings.

Since the 1930s, when retired Air Force Col. Charles Danforth built a home on 2,200 acres of what he described as "the most beautiful spot he had seen anywhere," newspaper ads placed by the developer brought swarms of visitors each week. According to Gertrude Osborne, also a longtime resident who compiled a brief history of the community for the Civic Association, Harbour Heights, "where the land meets the sun," was considered a suburb of Punta Gorda. Hettema remembers that waterfront lots could be bought for $37.50 down and $37.50 per month and those without access to the water for little more than $10 down and $10 per month.

Six miles east of the north bank of the Peace River, Harbour Heights residents lacked both educational and religious resources. Oscar Hettema's children, Roger and Joan, were bussed to Port Charlotte schools, and the first religious services were held in the newly dedicated Civic Building in 1962. Herb Shutts, manager of a local motel, recruited a retired armed forces chaplain, the Rev. Elie Richards, who agreed to hold weekly services for $15 per week in what was called the Peace River Interdenominational Chapel which later became the United Methodist Church.

"There were perhaps a dozen people worshiping that first Sunday but now we number over 115 families," said Hettema, who has been a member of its congregation since its beginning.

Residents shopped in Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda until a small grocery store opened in town. Hettema recalls that "the post office was located in Ina Mae Stevens' Hair Salon, which shared its quarters with William Bill' Sheetz' barber shop. To feed the hungry construction workers, a restaurant opened to serve them lunch, but the main social activities for residents took place at Harbour Heights Park around the Civic Center and the former Danforth home which housed a fine restaurant with an imported chef,' " said Hettema.

By now, the complex had added county-maintained tennis courts and a swimming pool to its amenities. In 1997, the former Danforth home, now the Neal Owens congregate meal site, was designated a local historic landmark.

Water sports were the center of Harbour Heights activities and amateur outboard racing regattas took place regularly. The surrounding waters were filled with fish, and the first annual International Tarpon Tournament was held in 1962.

"I recall seeing tarpon brought in that were six- to seven-feet long," Hettema said. "Once Fox Movietone News brought in a helicopter with a fishing boat suspended in a sling that they dropped right into the middle of a school of tarpon. Now we see tarpon occasionally, but our fishing has declined because man has moved in. Once, we could catch all the snook we could eat every night from out our own docks."

Life in Harbour Heights continues its leisurely pace although construction on new homes is increasing. Oscar Hettema realizes that nothing ever stays the same but hopes that any change will be for the better.

• Helen Rosen

CAPTION(S):

Longtime Harbour Heights resident Oscar Hettema has seen Florida grow from thousands of acres of undeveloped scrub pine to the growing municipalities of today.

-- Sarasota Herald Tribune

In Memoriam of Oscar Hettema
Oscar Hettema passed away on Wednesday, November 24 at the age of 99 ½ years old. His
daughter Joan Smoak, sent us a letter informing us of his death saying that he maintained a high
quality of life until about the last four months of his life. Every year when Oscar signed his dues
statement he would always send a note letting us know that he was still alive and how old he
was.
Oscar has been a member of FCCMA since 1946 and was one of our original members. He
served as President of the Association in the Program Year 1956-1957 when he was manager of
Dade City.
Dick Simmons, Past President and long-time member of FCCMA shared the following: Oscar
Hettema was the oldest Past President of COMA and I think the oldest COMA member. Oscar
was a fine man and was a great and dedicated president. I was a young Manager and considered
him an inspiration and a mentor. He was never too busy to take time to share with another
manager. When he served, FCCMA was smaller, we had no staff, and the annual dues were five
dollars per year; so he paid his own expenses and did his own planning. He was a long-time
manager of Dade City and moved to Winter Haven where I got to know his family, which was
the most important thing in his life. We lost a pioneer, leader and a man of integrity when we
lost Oscar Hettema.
We give our condolences to his family and we will miss his notes.

-- The Manager, Newsletter of the Florida City and County Management Association

In late 1941 Oscar Hettema and his father were employed by the Paul Smith Construction Co. in Florida. building flight training facilities and housing complexes at a newly designated B-25 training base in Tampa named Drew Field.

When the war started Hettema could have gotten a deferment from the draft because he was employed in an essential war industry. But as the 88-year-old Harbour Heights resident recalls, "After seeing one after another of my buddies enlisting. I decided it was time for me to go and do my part. We received word that anyone with construction or engineering experience could get a better rating if they enlisted in the Navy Construction Battalions."

In April 1942, Hettema, 30, went to Jacksonville and joined the 16th C.B. Battalion - the "Seabees."

Hettema was sent to Norfolk, Va., for a short. but intense, training period. "Boot camp was rough because they knew we would leave immediately afterward for combat zones in the Pacific." The 16th C.B. Battalion was rushed across the country by rail to San Francisco. where they boarded a converted passenger ship. the Lurline, and headed for Pearl Harbor.

The Lurline arrived safely in Pearl Harbor, where the Seabees witnessed first hand the devastation caused by Japanese attack a few months earlier, The Lurline was one of the few ships allowed into the harbor because the men she was carrying would be involved with salvage work. Hettema still remembers his first view of the site of America's worst naval defeat.

"It was just terrible, what a mess. Several battle ships were sunk at their berths, and everything else seemed to be blown to pieces by the bombing. Hickam Field had almost every building blown to debris, and the sight of all those planes destroyed all over the field was quite depressing."

The 16th C.B. Battalion debarked for its first wartime assignment. "We. were involved in the cleanup. We helped float the West Virginia. We would patch holes and pump air into her and raise her a little at a time - eventually we floated her. I wasn't involved down below, but it was horrible for the guys that opened the hatches and found remains of the sailors who had been trapped there. After raising the West Virginia, we were assigned to build a bomb-proof shelter for Admiral Nimitz - overlooking the harbor - that could withstand any bomb at the time. It was four stories - two above ground and two below, with the concrete getting thicker as you went further down. He had six months of supplies stockpiled in it when it was completed."

Nimitz was a great admirer of the work of the Seabees and, as Hettema soon came to realize, his battalion would be kept very busy in the coming years building airfields to keep up with the island-hopping advances in the Pacific. The 16th C.B. Battalion was landed at a small island within range of Guadalcanal called Funa­futti to build bomber runways. Before that project was completed, about 50 Seabees were handpicked to go on a special surveying mission on Naunemea, a small unoccupied island. Hettema was one of the men picked.

"Fifty Marines were to accompany us for protection. We were to land on this island, that wasn't far from Japanese-held islands, to survey sites for a camp and bomber runways, We loaded on to a destroyer that would take us there. 1 remember having full combat gear with a rifle just like the Marines and climbing up that cargo net of the destroyer. It was really rough getting aboard and half our guys became sea sick," Once the men were aboard, the destroyer traveled all night to Naunemea.

II About daybreak, we tried to make a landing, but the waves were so rough on the coral reef that two landing craft overturned. I was in the third boat. and we were called back to the destroyer to wait for larger landing craft that beached us on the reef. We waded ashore in waist-deep--water-with our rifles over our heads - all the time the natives on the island were up in the coconut trees watching us crazy Americans."

The delay caused problems. "We almost made it in without the Japanese knowing it, but a reconnaissance plane spotted us and in no time we were under bombing attack. We were ordered to dig in and I dug in with my helmet. The destroyer hung around and kept the Japanese planes high to throw off their bombing accuracy. But eventually they had to leave. We ended up staying on that island for 10 days with no other supplies - the natives taught us how to drink coconut milk. The rest of our battalion finally lansed and we started building the airstrips. Japanese 'Bettys' bombed us with anti-personnel bombs nightly - our carrier fighters kept them away during the day. We built trenches with coconut tons over them and covered them with three feet of sand. On one occasion. the five bombs that were usually dropped in a group hit on each side and straddled our shelter. We received sand bums from the concussion but otherwise were all right. II

Hettema received the rank of chief petty officer while on Naunemea and also worked for a time repairing PT boats. Nimitz again requested a special group of Seabees to build fuel storage tanks on Tarawa and Makin Islands, and Hettema was one of those who was selected (or that mission. Hettema would meet John F. Kennedy. whose PT boat was sunk not far from Makin Island, but not until the war was over.

• Paul DeGaeta, Sarasota Tribune, Sept. 9, 1999 -- http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1774&dat=19990909&id=IwodAAAAIBAJ&sjid=G34EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6088,3368389