Jerry Tyrone Heil

Obituary of Jerry Tyrone Heil Jerry Tyrone Heil was born in Portland, Oregon on November 17, 1942, the second child of Philip S. and Helen L. Heil. He attended Vestal elementary school and graduated from Madison High School in 1960. Jerry went on to study range management at Oregon State University, a result of his early love of raising exotic birds in the family’s back yard and basement and his love of the wilderness . But his first love was for language and, in particular, Russian. After graduating from OSU in 1964 he joined the Peace Corps and spent over two years in the Anatolian Highlands of Turkey, captured by the history, culture, language and arts of the region. On his meager Peace Corps stipend, he collected pottery, copper ware and several rustic carpets that were the stuff of fascination for some of his younger siblings. Jerry lived for years in Europe returning to the United States in 1973. He moved to California and turned again to the study of the Russian language, literature and cinema, particular pre and revolutionary era cinema, finally earning his PhD from UC-Berkeley in Russian. He taught for periods at several universities in the Midwest and California with his academic career punctuated with numerous grants and scholarships to study abroad in the archives and collections of the Soviet Union, Great Britain and other locations. His studies and analysis were published in several academic journals. His adopted home for decades was Berkeley, California where he could more easily continue his interests. He collected, cherished and traded books, particularly rare academic volumes and, when a long term illness began to limit his activities, he began to once again raise smaller exotic birds in his Berkeley home. Jerry died early on the morning of March 20, 2016 in Oakland, California. He was preceded in death by his younger brother Dennis and his parents. He is survived by his sister Naomi Standley and his brothers Gene, Stan and Leonard Heil, their spouses, children and grandchildren.