20)  The Volunteer Fire Department

Emergency Medical Services by Hearse, Bread Truck, and Van

(Ronald Mack)

Back when I joined the fire department. the local funeral home, which was Crouse’s Funeral Home which is now McPeek’s Funeral Home, they did all the ambulance work.  So if there was a car wreck or a fire, we took care of the fire aspects of it and then Lloyd Crouse would come in a hearse and haul the people to the hospital. 

Later we started to get into doing squad work and emergency medical services.  First aid was the first level of care that was offered by the fire department.  The first emergency vehicle we had was what we called the “cracker box”.  It looked like a bread truck and it rode like a truck.

Then we got a little more comfortable of a vehicle that we called “Casper.”  It was like a white Cadillac ambulance, the kind that looked like a hearse, but it was really equipped with first aid gear.  Not much room to work in the back though.

Then they started coming up with regulations for what vehicles should look like and the next thing that we went to was a van type vehicle, which was better equipped and more room to work but still pretty tight.  Subsequently we went to the box type of vehicle which had all kinds of room as more medical care was given. 

The Cracker Box Emergency Squad

(Jim Dumbauld)

When I first started in 1962 we had this great big old bread truck for our emergency squad.  It was the first squad – probably bought in the latter 1950’s.  The Granville Rotary helped buy this piece of equipment.  It was purchased as a new truck but it looked like today’s bread trucks.  We called it the cracker box.  A man by the name of George Horton, who was a carpenter, built in wood cabinets and a wooden bench to lay the patient on.  Of course we had a pad too.

And then we bought a 1961 Chevy station wagon.  But there was only a foot of space between the head of the patient on the cot and the roof.  You really couldn’t work on them.  And then they started to develop these high-tops so you could get over the top of the patient and work on them.  When we bought the high top that’s when we really started working on our patients more.

 Store Owners Were the Firemen in the 1960s

(Ronald Mack)

In the old days [ 1960s ], Carl Welsh had Welsh’s Grocery store, Gene Wolford owned the Aladdin Restaurant, Jim Remmele ran the insurance company that was between the Aladdin Restaurant and Welsh’s.  Buck Sargent, of course, had Sargent’s Market.  Harold Taylor owned Taylor’s Drugs.  And all those people were on the fire department.  The original calls for fire service used to come to Harold Taylor.  Harold would go outside and push a button on a post out in front, and that rang the siren.  The siren itself sat on top of a big old brick building that housed Gregory Hardware, which sat where the new Taylor’s Drugs building is now.

Keeping Up with Equipment

(Jim Dumbauld)

It used to be first aid on the scene, before you got the victim in the truck.  If they were out on the highway or whatever, you might get them up on the cot and do first aid and bandage them up.  Once you got them in that vehicle, you just went like heck to the hospital.  And then we started getting the better equipment.  Granville has always been one to keep up with that in equipment and knowledge.

Getting Medical Training

(Ronald Mack)

And somewhere along the line we were trained in emergency medical services – first at a technician level and then they came out with the medics, which was more like paramedics.  I was one of the first ones to become a medic, still am today.  But we went through a lot less training than what the current medics have to go through.  So the current medics are really well prepared and we have some very good medics on the department, better than I am.  Also in the case of accidents, we still have the rescue vehicles and we have the extrication tools -- that’s the Jaws of Life and all kinds of equipment to get people out of cars.

Joining the Fire Department as a Junior Member

(Lea Ann Parsley)

My brothers Bob and Brian both joined the Granville Fire Department.  We only lived two blocks from the station, so when the siren would blow, I would hop on my bike and ride up to the station and wait for them to come back from whatever emergency call it was.  And if it was a fire, then I would help them wash the trucks and roll the hose and do whatever to clean up stuff.  Then finally, when I turned sixteen, I was eligible to join as a junior member.  That meant you could do everything except for actually going into a burning building.  Then when you turned 18, you were truly an adult and you were covered under all the insurance, so then you could do everything.

I’ve been on there since 1985.  Being a fireman had never crossed my mind as a kid.  It was just something that dropped into my lap simply because we lived so close and Bob and Brian had gotten into it.  I think for my parents it wasn’t a huge leap of faith.  They knew that we were in good hands.  They knew the people in the fire department, community people like Ron Mack, Norm Kennedy, Dave Kishler.  They felt comfortable handing us over to people that they knew.

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