Author, Clock & Watch Maker, Meteorologist
Born November 25, 1897, Talladega, Alabama
Died May 15, 1977, presumably in Talladega, Alabama
Richard Toole Heine, Jr., who wrote as Dick Heine, was born on November 25, 1897, in Talladega, Alabama, to Richard Heine, Sr., a jeweler, and Carrie V. (Weatherly) Heine, a law secretary. Dick Heine graduated from Talladega High School in 1917, and by 1920 was in Phoenix, Arizona. He worked there as a meteorologist, a fitting occupation, I guess, for a man whose mother was named Weatherly. Heine was employed by the U.S. Weather Bureau, an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, then the U.S. Department of Commerce. Heine was in Phoenix in 1920 and 1930. By 1940, he was back home in Talladega. Something must have happened to him, because he was then unemployed. In the U.S. Census of 1950, he was listed as unable to work.
Dick Heine had four stories in Weird Tales from 1925 to 1927, the first being "The Jungle Presence," a brief tale published 100 years ago this month, in February 1925. Heine's brother-in-law, Charles E. Planck, was also a writer. He wrote magazine articles on aviation, as well as a hardbound book, Women with Wings (1942).
The Heine family seems to have stuck together. It's nice to think that that's what really happened. Dick Heine died on May 15, 1977, presumably in Talladega, and was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in the city of his birth.
Dick Heine's Stories in Weird Tales
"The Jungle Presence" (Feb. 1925)
"The Fiend of the Seine" (Nov. 1925)
"A Creeping, Crawling Thing" (Sept. 1926)
"The Algerian Cave" (July 1927)
Further Reading
"Dick Heine, Jr. Writer of Mystery Stories" in Our Mountain Home (Talladega, Alabama), October 28, 1925, page 3. This is a very brief article. In it, Heine's stories are perhaps euphemistically called "mystery stories." This is also a very early example of a newspaper article that mentioned Weird Tales by name.
Text copyright 2025 Terence E. Hanley
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