52 Ancestors Week 42: Fire

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 42:

The theme for Week 42 is “Fire.” Whether as a source of warmth, power, or destruction, everyone’s life has been impacted by fire. This week, consider an ancestor who worked with fire or whose life (or records!) was impacted by it. 

Flame on!

    Fire really is a giver of warmth and a destroyer. You have to respect it and not play with matches! Smokey the Bear said so himself. Only YOU can prevent forest fires! Would you believe I haven't encountered many stories involving fires on my genealogical adventure? I've written about the fire at my grandfather Marco's motel on Salisbury Beach. I've also written about my great-uncle Alfred Hamel Jr who was a soldier and a firefighter.  See the story about his heroic deeds in this blog.

    There was even a small chimney fire in my house in the early to mid 1980s. I don't know much about it and there isn't a lot to tell to be honest. Obviously, it wasn't a roaring five alarm blaze that destroyed everything. No, it was an electrical fire.  As a result we never used the fireplace for anything not even roasting marshmallows. It was probably for the best. Cleaning them is hard work.

    After finding that article about Alfred, I was left wondering if any more of his heroic exploits made the local paper. The guy was news! Though, I suspect he was very modest about what he had done. Most firefighters tend to be modest and that's good. You don't want a hero with a superiority complex. Characters like that get written out of stories really quickly if you know what I mean. So, what happened to Alfred after his heroic rescue of his family in 1947? Let's find out!

Newburyport Daily
News, 27 Jan 1960, pg 10.

    It looks like our hero got a long overdue military award in January 1960. According to the article from the Newburyport Daily News, Alfred was given the ward after almost sixteen years of service as a Marine Air Reservist. The award was his belated second award of the Navy Unit Commendation.

    Other articles I've found in the newspaper archives have painted Alfred to be quite the hero. He served with distinction during the second World War and his valor was more than well deserved. I just wonder what took so long for him to receive this prestigious award. There might have been delays, red tape and all of that bureaucratic nonsense. At least he finally received it. It's better late than never.

    While receiving military awards is awesome  I wanted to see if he received any awards for his service as a firefighter. I did find one article where his father recognized his son in a photo posted by the Boston Post in 1954. Sadly, there is no archive of the Boston Post online as far as I can tell. That's okay. At least the article explained why his photo was in the paper. Sometimes you need to take what you can get and hope that an archive shows up some day.

  

    It seems that our hero was one of fifteen firefighters called to the Summer Street MTA station to rescue a man who had fallen from the platform into the train pit. Two cars passed over him and miraculously he emerged slightly injured.  Wow! Lady luck was with him that day and it's a good thing Alfred and co were on the scene to lend a hand. I would love to see the article AND the photo. I hope it gets posted online at some point. Can you imagine how proud Alfred senior was when he saw his son in the paper? Pretty proud, I'd say. It seems I have many heroes in my tree. I might write about superheroes but these guys are real superheroes. 'Nuff said!

    I've tried looking for more articles about Alfred's heroic exploits in the Newburyport archives. I think if I were to look him up in Boston archives I would find a lot of information and a picture or two. Time will tell.

    Anyway, it's clear that Alfred is quite the hero. He saved his family from a fire. He saved a man who fell off of a platform in Boston. That's pretty amazing! I obviously never met the man as he passed away in 1972 at the age of fifty-two. I would have liked to have met him since my grandfather told me many stories about his brother. Here's hoping I find more adventures of this courageous firefighter!

See ya next time!

Bowties will always be cool.