After his primary education, he attended Howlands Academy and studied law in the office of Hand & Flett while working as a paperboy and then letter carrier.

In 1893, under the presidency of Grover Cleveland, Heck was appointed stamp collector of internal revenue for Racine, an office he retained until resigning in July 1897 at the arrival of his successor.

In 1894, he earned local notoriety when he successfully won the acquittal of Mary Mayer, who had been charged with poisoning her husband, Herman Groenke.

[6] At the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, in 1898, he enlisted in the United States Army and was enrolled as a private in Company F, 1st Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

That fall, Heck received a thirty-day furlough to return to Racine and accompany the body of fellow Racinian Charles Evenson, who had died of Typhoid Fever.

[8] The request was transmitted to the Governor, who was commander-in-chief of the state volunteer force, and Congressman Henry Allen Cooper, receiving a prompt favorable reply.

They had one daughter, Margery, who attended Marquette University and became a successful lawyer and worked for a time as deputy clerk of the Wisconsin Circuit Court in Racine County.