THIS MONTH'S FEATURED HISTORY PROJECT
INTERVIEW:
Martin Hochheiser
Guidance Counselor
October 24, 2002

   Martin was named after his paternal great grandfather. His nickname is Marty, but while living in California, they nicknamed him Fuzzy, because he had a beard. The name Hochheiser means “high house”, and almost every Hochheiser is related and can be traced back to a small town in Austria. At the time of this interview he was married for 41 years to Marcia, with one son, Scott who was 37 at the time. Marty is a native Long Islander, born in Babylon in 1935 and currently living in East Islip where he has lived since 1968.
  Marty’s family were in a sense “pioneers” on Long Island. His grandfather helped found the Jewish temple in Babylon before he moved back to Brooklyn, where he originally came from. The village of Babylon was a very small town, so everyone knew everybody. He and his brother “reeked havoc” and were constantly in trouble. While in elementary school in 1941, he remembered being scared during an air raid drill thinking that the US was under attack.
    His father was in the auxiliary police at that time. He didn’t have a lot of formal education but was very bright. His mother was a very bright woman who was frustrated being a stay at home mother, so she became very active in several Jewish groups. She enjoyed reading and speaking publicly.
   Marty has an older brother, and a younger brother who passed away. He remembers that he and his older brother used to pick on their younger brother. He and his older brother were very close. Marty was always telling jokes with a great sense of humor.
   When asked if there were any adults in addition to his parents that influenced him, he recalled several of his teachers in elementary school and high school.
   Marty originally wanted to go into Journalism and drama. He started college later, because he didn’t have the money and worked in a luncheonette as a soda jerk to earn money. He then met a cousin who had gone to Brooklyn College and told him about the tuition free program there for students going into education. So, Marty enrolled in Brooklyn College and studied there for a year commuting by train each day. He met a friend who was going out to California and was looking for some company, so Marty decided to go with him. While in California, he joined the Teamster’s Union and worked at several jobs. He would listen to the union workers who would complain about their work and this made Marty want to help and counsel them. He then decided to go back to school and attended Los Angeles City College at night. He decided that he wanted to be a school counselor, so he returned to Brooklyn College studying in the education program. At that time, in order to be a school counselor, you had to work as a teacher for 3 years. He liked history, so he taught social studies in Brentwood while getting his Masters in Counseling and then became a guidance counselor there. He studied an additional 30 graduate credits at C.W. Post College.
   Marty was always working. His first paying job was working for the local Newspaper, the Babylon Leader for $.25 an hour to assemble the paper and $.02 a copy selling it at the train station. In addition to working in the luncheonette, he was a pin boy at a bowling alley.
   When asked what his favorite holiday was, he said Passover, when their close family would all get together at his late grandfather’s house. As the family got bigger, they celebrated over two nights. During prohibition, they made their own wine for the holiday.