The Keene Sentinel
WEST SWANZEY, N.H. — Eighty years ago on a hot July afternoon, lightning struck a farm off Keene-Richmond Road, setting a shed connected to a house and two barns ablaze.
Ernest L. Robbins, Vernor E. Eastman and fellow volunteer firefighters from the West Swanzey Fire Department jumped on the No. 2 fire truck to respond to the east side of town.
But Robbins and Eastman never made it. They died after the truck they were riding on crashed on Swanzey Lake Road about 2 miles from the fire.
Robbins, 30, left behind a wife and two children. Eastman, 27, was survived by his mother, Freda, whom he supported financially.
As the years passed, the story of their deaths became a distant memory, revisited briefly in 1995 during a dedication ceremony at the West Swanzey Fire Station. Around that time, a plaque was put on the building in the men’s honor.
But recently, Swanzey Fire Chief Norman W. Skantze learned that though the men died in the line of duty, their names weren’t on the N.H. Fallen Firefighters Memorial.
That will change during a public ceremony Saturday, when the men will be two of three firefighters whose names will be unveiled on the memorial, on the grounds of the N.H. Fire Academy in Concord.
The third firefighter is Roland G. Morrissette, a member of the Chester Fire Department who died in 1965 while fighting a fire in that town.
“These men made the ultimate sacrifice,” Skantze said. “As firefighters, our job comes with the risk that each day could be our last, but back then it was more so, as there were no safety standards to protect firefighters responding to calls.”
It’s important that firefighters who died in the line of duty are honored, with the hope that “the lives of these men and others like them will always matter,” he said. “That they died doing something important and great, and that their sacrifice will mean something positive someday.”
July 19, 1935
According to a July 20, 1935, Sentinel article, Robbins and Eastman had been riding on the right side of the fire truck while responding to the fire at the farm the day before. They’d been riding on the running board, out in the open and with no restraints.
Seven other firefighters, including driver Frederick I. Barlow, were on the truck with them, standing or sitting anywhere they could find space.
The truck was one of two traveling Swanzey Lake Road to the fire at the Wilbur Twitchell farm on Keene-Richmond Road, the article says. As the trucks traveled along the road with sirens blaring, they met a car at the “narrowest place in the road.”
Barlow pulled the truck into a ditch, hoping to bring it back up onto the road. But a tree loomed ahead.
Robbins and Eastman were pinned between the truck and the tree, and both men suffered broken legs and shock.
Robbins’ chest was also crushed, and Eastman had a broken pelvis and a bad laceration to his thigh. Both were taken to Elliot Community Hospital in Keene, where they died — Robbins within minutes of being admitted, and Eastman by early the next morning.
Robbins, a mill hand at the Homestead Woolen Mill, left his wife, Sarah L. Hodgkins, who he married in 1926, and two sons, Ernest J. and Robert. He also had five brothers, Arthur, Edward, Charles, Leon and George, and a sister identified in his obituary as Mrs. Stillman Graves.
Eastman, a textile weaver at the mill, was survived by two sisters identified in his obituary as Mrs. Peter Holbrook and Mrs. Victor Patnode. Patnode’s first name was Velma.
Velma’s husband, Victor, was also on the No. 2 fire truck that day. He was one of three firefighters riding on the back of the vehicle, and wasn’t injured in the crash that killed his brother-in-law.
Skantze said the mill’s owners were heavily invested in the fire department and allowed firefighters to leave work to respond to calls. They even had a siren installed on the roof of one of the mill’s buildings, and it wasn’t uncommon when it went off to see men running from loading docks, charging through doors and jumping out of windows to respond to a call, he said. The fire station was just a short run across the Thompson Covered Bridge onto Main Street.
Only one other firefighter, Clarence Smith, was injured in the crash, his ailment described in the article as a “grazed arm.”
Story still resonates
Skantze said he first heard the story of Robbins and Eastman’s deaths when he started working as Swanzey’s fire chief in 2008, two years after the state memorial was first dedicated.
He noticed the article about the crash in the file cabinet in his office. He read it, and kept it on hand as a poignant reminder of how dangerous being a firefighter can be, he said.
“Something like this — even though it was 80 years ago — is still relevant today,” he said. “The trucks are safer than they were back then, but accidents still happen and firefighters still die while responding to calls. This is something that resonates with all of us.”
The deaths of Robbins, Eastman and firefighters across the country while responding to calls made improving firefighter safety a priority in the U.S., according to Skantze.
Nearly three years after the 1935 crash, but not directly because of it, the National Fire Protection Association formed a committee tasked with developing safety standards for the design of fire apparatus, including fire trucks, Skantze said. Those standards continue to evolve as technology changes.
Fire trucks nowadays are built with features that include rollover stability, seat belt sensors that keep trucks from moving until firefighters are strapped in, and cabs made to seat multiple firefighters and protect them in a crash, he said.
“The chances of survival are so much better now because of the standards,” he said. “Unfortunately, it was on the backs of people who were injured or killed while riding on fire apparatus.”
Skantze said it wasn’t until recently that he learned Robbins and Eastman’s names weren’t on the state memorial. He decided to change that.
In April, he wrote N.H. Fire Marshal J. William Degnan, asking that Robbins’ and Eastman’s names be added to the 78 already etched into the stone slabs.
Searching for relatives
Less than a month ago, Skantze learned his request to get Robbins’ and Eastman’s names on the memorial had been approved. He has since been trying to find the men’s families, and expects those efforts will continue after the ceremony until he’s found them.
“If we don’t find them in time, we hope to eventually connect with them so they can be a part of future dedication ceremonies,” he said earlier this week.
By Thursday, he was able to track down Eastman’s great-nephew, Linwood R. Patnode Jr. of Surry.
Patnode said he’s thrilled his great-uncle will be honored Saturday. He heard the story of how Eastman died several times from his grandmother and father, but “never thought anything of it other than it was just sort of a family thing.”
When Skantze walked into Patnode’s office Thursday, apologizing for being late in telling him about Saturday’s ceremony, Patnode said he wasn’t bothered by the timing at all.
“I just think this is so cool this is being done,” he said.
He added that he wishes his father, Linwood Sr., was still alive to learn of the honor because he would have gotten such a kick out of it.
Patnode, who is the head football coach at Monadnock Regional High School and also its athletic director, said he isn’t sure he’s going to be able to make the ceremony because the team has a game Saturday.
He hopes his brother Gregory, who lives in Keene, or cousin Todd, who lives in Swanzey, can go in his place, he said.
Swanzey firefighter Lee D. Dunham, who is also a town historian, said Robbins is buried in St. Joseph Cemetery in Keene, and Eastman is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in West Swanzey. He discovered three or four years ago that he’s related to Eastman through the Whitcomb line of his family, Dunham said, as his great-grandfather and Eastman’s mother were siblings.
Robbins and Eastman will join Swanzey firefighter David R. Packard, whose name was added to the memorial in 2006. He died that same year of a heart attack hours after he responded to an emergency call.
Skantze, who will speak about Robbins and Eastman at Saturday’s ceremony, said he isn’t aware of any other Swanzey firefighters who died while serving the department.
“I’m pretty sure we just had three, but it’s three too many,” he said.
The ceremony begins Saturday at 10 a.m. at the memorial, on the grounds of the N.H. Fire Academy at 98 Smokey Bear Blvd. in Concord.
Copyright 2015 The Keene Sentinel
All Rights Reserved