The Busy

Bette)

ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

I; ette Heidenrich is
rarely able to complete
a sentence.
"That's just how it
is — oh, and I like col-
orful clothes, too — re-
ally colorful — that's another thing.
"But I'm lucky," she says. "Everybody
takes me just the way I am."
The way she is, those who knows her
say, is remarkable.
"She is the kind of person who wants
to take care of the world," says longtime
friend Julia Goodman of West Bloom-
field. "She never passes a panhandler
without giving something. She is always Bette Heidenrich with her grandson, David.
buying coats for the Russian immigrants
and holding parties for them. Her giving
members of the temple, too — there has always
is so unusual. This is someone who would lit- been a synagogue and a temple here — and they
erally give you the shirt off her back."
call us a dying city!
Mrs. Heidenrich — born, bred in and bullish
"So anyway, that's how I started doing things,
on Flint — has been active helping resettle Russ- because of my parents," Mrs. Heidenrich says.
ian immigrants and volunteering with senior
Bette began as a board member of B'nai B'rith
citizens. She supports numerous other organi- Girls and with the junior sisterhood at her con-
zations but insists, "I'm just a little tiny cog in gregation.
the wheel."
One of her best pals was Julia Goodman.
It all started with her parents.
Mrs. Goodman was a newlywed whose hus-
"I remember standing with my mother in the band, Phil, was from Flint. When the couple set-
rain by the bank building, collecting for the can tled in town, friends introduced Julia to another
society," she says. Her mother was famous young woman her age, Doris, thinking the two
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • would have much in common.
Younger sister Bette often "tagged along with
"MI rs. Heidenrich regu-
Doris," Mrs. Goodman recalls, and that's how
a lifelong friendship began.
larly prepares gifts
Bette later married a Bad Axe native, a Ko-
and helps with parties
rean war vet named Marvin Heidenrich, who
for many years has been the quiet financier of
for New Americans.
his wife's projects.
After she married, Bette became active with
for making new residents in Flint feel at home, the City of Hope (where she was the top blintz
too. Her father loved children and was the kind seller), and with ORT, Hadassah, B'nai B'rith
of man "everybody wanted as a dad," Mrs. Good- Women and the Jewish War Veterans. (She re-
man says.
tains membership in the organizations even
"My parents — both of them were from Flint, though some of their Flint chapters have since
though my father was really born in Chicago and closed.)
my mother was the only Jewish girl in Owosso
These days, Mrs. Heidenrich dedicates much
(they both came to Flint when they were young) of her time to helping those she calls her "ex-
— were always on a board. They were charter

