Fifty years of firefighting

Lloyd Wright didn’t set out to be a firefighter.
It just turned out that way.
“I walked into Thobe’s (in Fort Recovery) one morning, and Erm Wendel, the fire chief was there. … They asked me to come down to the fire station,” Wright recalled this week. “That was in ’66, and I’ve been chasing or driving them little red trucks ever since.”
After 50 years as a volunteer firefighter — first with Fort Recovery then with Salamonia Volunteer Fire Department — Wright admits to slowing down a bit.
“I drive the truck,” he said. “I answer the call.”
But his wife Sharon added that it wasn’t too long ago that she went to the scene of a fire to bring some needed refreshments and found Lloyd on the roof.
Wright, who spent much of his working career at the former Meshberger Brothers Stone Corporation quarry southwest of Portland, served about eight years with the Fort Recovery department and joined the Salamonia department after the couple married in 1974.
Over the years, he’s held just about every possible job with the Salamonia department.
“I was the fire chief out here for awhile,” he said. “I’ve held the assistant chief’s job.”
He’s also been president and vice president of the volunteer firefighters’ organization at Salamonia.
Today, he’s district chairman for District 8B for the Indiana Volunteer Firefighters Association, visiting 26 fire departments in Jay, Randolph, Delaware, Blackford and Henry counties on a regular basis. The IVFA recognized his firefighting years in Ohio and honored him as a life member of the association for 50 years of service.
Not everyone is cut out to be a firefighter, but Wright believes it’s an important calling.
“Our main job as a firefighter is to save property and save lives, and that’s what I try to do,” he said. “And there’s a lot of camaraderie in firefighting.”
One essential is to have the support of your spouse and family.
“If you’re married, your wife and children have to be behind you 100 percent,” he said, describing a scenario in which a fire call could upend family plans at a moment’s notice.
“Today it’s a family affair. They have to support you. … They’ve got to understand.”
Sharon will admit that being the wife of a firefighter can bring some stress.
“I don’t (worry) so much now, but when we were first married I did,” she said.
Fifty years of firefighting locally translates into some significant blazes. Because of mutual aid relationships between departments, Salamonia’s department has been called upon to help on major fires in both Portland and Fort Recovery. Those include the Boston Store fire in the late 1960s, the Cline-Wilt Lumberyard fire in the early 1970s and the Hines Theatre fire in the 1980s.
Wright was also among those responding when the historic Boundary General Store burned in the mid-1970s.
Among the changes Wright has seen in the course of his firefighting career are the 911 emergency dispatch system and the re-numbering of county roads.
“When I first came over here (to Jay County), I had trouble with the county roads,” said Wright. “I got confused.”
Mercer County’s rural roads all have names instead of numbers, and to someone who had lived there all his life it was a simple system. The numbering system, which is intended to make it easier for people who may not know their way around like a native, took some getting used to.
So did the 911 dispatch system.
“Sometimes the old fire phone worked the best,” said Wright of the system that was in place before 911.
In a fire emergency, someone would call the fire number and it would ring in eight different places. The firefighter would respond, and it was his spouse’s responsibility to call four other firefighters. The spouses of each of those four firefighters would then call four more until everyone had been notified.
Retired now from the quarry for four years, Wright acknowledged that he might be slowing down a bit. But he’s far from ready to give up firefighting.
“I’ll do it as long as I can,” he said. “When my health gives out, I’m done.”
Added Sharon: “They’ll carry him out before he quits.”