By Meghan Foley
The Keene Sentinel
KEENE, N.H. — On a December night more than 50 years ago, Keene Fire Capt. Francis J. Driscoll Sr. answered his last call.
His line-of-duty death has been remembered locally for years, and his family continues to have ties to the fire service.
This week, he’ll receive wider recognition, when his name is added to the N.H. Fallen Firefighters Memorial in Concord.
Driscoll was one of several city firefighters to respond to a fire at a two-family home on North Lincoln Street the night of Dec. 5, 1965.
The blaze swept through three rooms of the three-story home before firefighters were able to bring it under control, according to a Sentinel article from the time.
Driscoll, then 62, was inside the house fighting the fire when he collapsed. Fellow firefighters rushed him out of the building on a stretcher and into a waiting ambulance. The exchange happened so quickly, the ambulance sped away before its back door could be closed.
Driscoll was pronounced dead at nearby Elliot Community Hospital, according to the article. The medical examiner ruled his cause of death to be a coronary thrombosis, a form of a heart attack.
Keene Fire Chief Mark F. Howard said Friday that Driscoll’s passing is the only line-of-duty death he knows of from the department dating back to the 1800s.
Driscoll had been a member of the fire department for 33 years when he died. He began as a member of the city’s auxiliary fire department in April 1932, and was promoted to second lieutenant in October 1944. He became first lieutenant in October 1948, and then a captain in November 1956.
When he died, he left behind his wife, Lucille, and five children, including his son, Francis Jr., who was a member of the Keene Fire Department Auxiliary at the time of his father’s death.
Less than six months after the fire, Francis Driscoll Jr. was hired as a career member of the Keene Fire Department, and had reached the rank of captain when he retired in December 1984. He died in July.
While Francis Driscoll Sr.’s name is on the fire department’s memorial next to the central fire station on Vernon Street, it’s not on the state monument, which is something Howard and other local firefighters didn’t know until recently, Howard said.
“I was contacted by a member of another area department who was a relative of Francis Sr. He had recently visited the memorial and saw Francis Sr.’s name wasn’t on it,” Howard said.
That firefighter, Richard A. Lewandowski of Swanzey, was at the state memorial last September for the annual public ceremony remembering New Hampshire firefighters who had died in the line of duty.
He was among a contingent of Swanzey firefighters there to honor two former members of the department whose names were being added to the memorial. Ernest L. Robbins and Vernor E. Eastman had died 80 years before in a fire truck accident while responding to a blaze sparked by lightning.
“I had known my grandfather-in-law had been killed in the line of duty, but when I looked around the memorial, I couldn’t find his name,” Lewandowski said Saturday. “I thought it was odd his name wasn’t there.”
When he got back to Swanzey, he asked the town’s fire chief, Norman W. Skantze, what he should do about getting Driscoll’s name on the memorial; Skantze pointed him in the right direction, Lewandowski said.
Once he had collected all the paperwork, including Driscoll’s death certificate and newspaper articles that Lewandowski’s wife, Patricia, had saved about the fire and her grandfather’s death, he gave them to Howard to submit to the N.H. Fire Marshal’s Office for approval, Lewandowski said.
Earlier this month, Howard received a letter from N.H. State Fire Marshal J. William Degnan saying Driscoll would be added to the monument.
Driscoll’s name will be one of six unveiled during a public ceremony Saturday at noon at the memorial, Degnan said in an email Friday.
The others belong to Laconia Fire Capt. Milo J. Judkins, who died in 1949; Nashua Fire Chief William E. Whitney, who died in 1940; Milton Fire Chief Phillip Damon Pike, who died in 1971; New Hampton Firefighter Douglas A. Clement, who died in June; and Orford Firefighter Charles Waterbury, who died in July.
Saturday’s ceremony will also mark the 10th anniversary of the memorial, which was built and dedicated in 2006.
A year before that, letters were sent to fire departments across the state requesting the names of firefighters who died in the line of duty to be listed on the memorial’s tablets, Degnan wrote in the email.
“As you can see names from decades ago are still being added as people conduct additional research across the state,” he said.
Howard said he suspects Driscoll’s name wasn’t added before now because of a lapse in record-keeping. Back in the 1960s, it’s likely records of line-of-duty deaths were kept on a local level, but not on a state level as they are now, he said.
Having Driscoll’s name on the monument memorializes the date and time of his sacrifice, Howard said.
“The biggest thing for us is to, one, recognize him and his service to the department. It’s also so we don’t forget this line-of-duty death, and the risks that come in doing what we do,” said Howard, who plans to attend Saturday’s ceremony with an honor guard and other members of the fire department.
Lewandowski and his wife will be among a group of at least 10 of Driscoll’s family members who plan to attend, he said. They include retired Keene Fire Chief Gary P. Lamoureux, a city councilor who is married to one of Driscoll’s granddaughters, Holly, and retired Keene firefighter Michael J. Driscoll, one of Driscoll’s grandsons.
Michael Driscoll, who lives in Hancock, said this morning he doesn’t remember much about the night of the fire, since he was a young child then. His family also didn’t discuss it much as he grew up, he said.
But he said his grandfather’s name being added to the state memorial is an honor that’s long overdue.
Lewandowski agreed.
Being a firefighter is being part of brotherhood no matter the generation, he said, and it’s important his grandfather-in-law’s line-of-duty death is noted on the state memorial.
He was also inspired by his father-in-law, Francis Driscoll Jr., to make sure the elder Driscoll’s name got on the state memorial, Lewandowski said.
“My father-in-law was a great guy,” Lewandowski said. “My regret is that he didn’t live to see the ceremony.”
Copyright 2016 The Keene Sentinel