Terry Sherman: 
I was Capt of the Junior Firemen back in 1958-59. 
I remembers the dances on Saturday nights. Us Juniors spent many an hour setting up folding chairs and tables for the Ladies Aux's bingo games and then taking them down for the dances. Then up again for a meeting, then down for another function.

We played many a game of ping pong on the table in the basement.

We also held a "little kids dance". I played records and it cost them a dime to get in.

Bill Winters was our Capt and his wife Elsie and son Billy lived in the big house next door, and Dave Backenstose and his mom lived on the second floor.

Harold Rubincam (Ruby) was our president and also township police chief.

Vern Rettew and Gary Lurchs' dad went to the mid west truck company and drove our new FWD truck home.

Setting beside my keyboard is the juice glass given out at new engine room dedication 7/19/1958. That glass has a lot of miles on it. I suspect the glass held a different liquid for the seniors, but us juniors got juice. We were very proud of our new engine room.

Some other Juniors involved were Butch Franciscus, Denny Mahan, Denny O'Flaherty, Kenny Moll and Gary McLucas. 

The Ladies Aux would can a bunch of corn chowder and set up a table on the center line of the road in front of the fire house and sell it to passing traffic.

Eddie McGuigan's cherry 1956 Pontiac. Bill Winters 49-50 Chevy chiefs car.

Len Emory took over ownership of the new radio room. He had lost part of a leg and couldn't ride the truck anymore but was still very active on the radio. He responded to fire calls and worked the radio. He did a great job supporting the guys at the fire.

I learned to drink coffee at the annual fire school held in the fall I think in Thorndale. Sure was good on those frosty mornings.

We Juniors sure babied the old Autocar. After every meeting we would wax the old girl. In fact we would wax her at the drop of a hat. I remember riding her up Stovepipe Hill to a fire in Pomeroy Heights. It was hard to hang on and you could step off and walk as fast as she would go. Its a wonder we didn't blow up the engine. She won a lot of prizes at local parades in places like Parksburg, Atglen and Christiana.

The old sub shop is now a residence, the railroad bridge to Stovepipe is gone and there is a park where we used to skinny dip, but the fire house looks exactly the same.

We used to stand on the little front porch and wait for the school bus, and Chief Winters wife Elsie was the bus driver. She ran that bus the way Bill ran a fire scene. In charge-she was defiantly in charge.

We carried Indian Tanks because they wouldn't take the Autocar off road to fight brush fires. Each time you got refilled it was farther to the fire. We sure liked that FWD because they got it closer to the fire.

Everyone likes to listen to stories, and over the years the firemen have many to remember and tell…

Like the times when fire would break out in the middle of the night and the firemen would be half dressed, or still in their night clothes, or else could be seen dressing on the run…

How the women would break their necks getting to the fire hall to find out what was on fire and then rush on to watch the firemen at work controlling it…

Remember the night that Whitey McGuigan and Bob McCorkle went to a fire out in the country in their pajama’s, and the seat of Bob’s caught on fire…

The same night Whitey just missed death by seconds when just as he came out of the burning schoolhouse the iron bell crashed inches from his feet…

Like the time the firemen were in the midst of a meeting, and had just elected Whitey as their fire chief when an alarm was sounded, only to discover the fire to be at Whitey’s own garage…

Or Christmas Day when George Palmer’s house caught on fire and half way there the engine got stuck in the mud and all the firemen had to jump off the truck and push it the rest of the way…

Or the time that Andy Friedrich was courting his girl in a brand new suit when the siren blew. He decided to run home and change his clothes first and upon arriving home out of breath – found the fire apparatus there for his own home was on fire…

Do you remember the day that Johnnie Kennedy was walking around the company grounds and asked someone to get him a cross cut saw? Then he and Bill Russell got to work sawing the big timbers that had been left over from building the new fire hall and built the firemen a bandstand for their fairs…

No one will ever forget the time that a dozen or so energetic firemen one night to finish digging the foundation for the new building and slaved away until 3:00 in the morning to do it, then blew the siren to celebrate a hard job done, only to have all the firemen turn out to a fire that wasn’t burning…

This is the time that Herb Brown, in such hurry not to miss the truck, lost one of his brand new bedroom slippers, and on finding there was no fire, getting so angry that he vowed he would never answer another alarm…

But the next fire found him Johnny on the spot, as usual…
Or the time E. J. Hartman went to a fire, returned home and in getting off the truck broke his ankle…

Remember the time that rushing to a fire the truck was overturned on Mikl’s Hill and George Hines jumped from the overturning vehicle to the squad car and arrived at the fire safe and sound…

This is the time that Zach Leamy was driving and it was too his credit that no one was injured, for one and all say that if anyone else was driving, some of them would not be alive to tell the tale…

Do you remember the times that the old Cadillac would be whizzing away to a blaze and then suddenly without warning drift to a stop? The hubcaps would come unscrewed and a couple of the fellows would have to get off the truck and away they would speed off to the fire…

Did you know that Francis McGuigan has been an officer longer than any other member?

Can you recall the time when Pomeroy Fire Company had an outdoor dance floor and George threw objectionable dancer clear off the floor and over the fence…

And do you remember the time he decided to give his car a good overhauling and was knocking the rust from the wheels with a sledge hammer and Harvey Windle rushed to the fire hall thinking there was a fire…

Do you remember the temper Len Emery used to have, and how one day after returning from the fire he couldn’t get his car started, and got so angry that he threw the crank in the radiator and really wrecked his car…

In the more recent years………
When one of our members was interested in courting a nice young lady and was turned down, he was so flustered that he backed his car up right into the telephone pole…

As Mark Krauser got onto the engine for a call, one of the compartment doors was opened, as the engine was leaving, the compartment door swung open and took out part of the wall in the engine bay…

As Danny Tribbett and Todd Pechin returned to the firehouse in Engine 29-5 from the Westwood area, the hose began to unravel itself and fall off the back of the engine…it laid perfectly in the roadway from the 1600 block of Valley road to the Handy’s Farm before either of the firefighters noticed…

Do you remember when one of the female members of the fire company had a Volkswagon Rabbit, and how the fire fighters would physically pick her car up and turn it side ways so she could not get out of the parking lot…

Or the time that Jollene Pechin took the EVOC class, the last to do the course, Jollene thought she was supposed to do the course two times, first forward and then in reverse...the only one in her class to do so, Jollene passed the course with flying colors...

These are just a few of the burning embers from the days of old…if you have any you would like us to add please email us at webmaster@pomeroyfireems.com and we will be glad to add your contribution to ‘Burning Embers..’

Rich Bachman - Oxford, Pa

My dad, Harry Bachman, Jr. (know as June to the old-timers) was a member of Pomeroy Fire Company. I could share many stories that he and Uncle Don told me over the years.Here are a few:

Dad and his family lived in the caretakers’ house next door before Pop Winters moved in. The house phone rang at their place (at night) and my grandmother (Florence Bachman) would answer it. Meanwhile my grandfather, my dad and his brothers would all be charging out the door to be the first in the firehouse. Only problem was that in their haste to be the first to the engine none of them had any idea where the fire was. They had to wait until my grandmother came over and told them where to go. He also liked to tell the story how Whitey McGuigan or Len Emery gave a new driver a road test they would make them go over stovepipe hill. They had to go over a narrow railroad bridge, make a hard turn and proceed up the hill. Somehow the story went if the new driver made it over the hill without stalling the truck he passed his driver’s test.

One of my fond memories was stopping in on a Friday night in the early 60’s and going downstairs for a soda while dad visited with his friends. I would sneak back upstairs and ‘drive’ the FWD. It was my all time favorite! I was always scared of the old men staring down from the pictures on the wall. My other memory was coming to Pomeroy on a Sunday afternoon just before Christmas and watching a VERY old copy of Pinocchio. After that Santa would show up and we were allowed to share our secrets with him. What none of us realized was in later years they had a microphone so our parents could hear what we said.