John Schultz is shown with a photo of his parents, Rhinold and Alice Schultz, who were instrumental in the early days of the Brookfield Township Fire Department.
John Schultz remembers when firefighting was a neighborhood concern.
Back before the Brookfield Township Fire Department was founded in 1948, Schultz’s father, Rhinold, was chief of the Slope Volunteer Fire Department. Slope is the area around the intersection of Bedford and Stewart Sharon roads, and the intersection was known as Salow’s Corners.
“I don’t think they called it a (fire) department back then,” said Schultz, 87. “It was more or less a brigade.”
The brigade was “more or less 10 families each way from this corner,” said John Schultz, who lives on Bedford on what has been family property for decades. “It started out mostly with grass fires because there was a lot of woods around here.”
The neighborhood firefighters used heavy bristle brooms to beat out grass fires and buckets of water to douse them, Schultz said.
“Then, my dad got involved and got hand-held, about a quart-and-a-half, fire extinguishers,” he said. “They turned the handle and you pumped them, and they had carbon tet (tetrachloride) in them which nowadays is illegal because it causes cancer.”
Rhinold Schultz was a welder at Sharon Steel Corp., Farrell, and was involved in the firefighting operation there. He later took a job as a maintenance man for Brookfield schools and also had a shop where he practiced “shade tree mechanics.”
“He did everything: painted, fixed cars,” John Schultz said.
Slope’s firefighting equipment moved to backpacks that held water and shot it about 10 feet when you pumped them, then baking soda, acid and water extinguishers. Neighbors would gather at Rhinold’s shop to clean and recharge their extinguishers by putting new baking soda, water and acid in them.
“Later on in the years, they built a trailer, put a high-pressure, gasoline-driven pump on it,” John Schultz said. “Had a suction hose. Most people had a cistern or a well. They’d drop that down in it and get the water to put it out.”
The neighbors put up a building at the northeast corner of Bedford and Stewart Sharon – it no longer stands – to house the trailer.
John Schultz, who worked at General American in Masury from 1964 until it closed in 1984, the last 10 years in the company’s firefighting department, remembered one fire call where the resident of a house that burned was missing. When firefighters went to pull the hose out of the well, they found the man in the bottom of it, dead.
This photo from about 1953 shows some of the founders and officers of the Brookfield Township Fire Department. Standing, from left, George Kirila, Sandor Dankovitch, Frank Ayers, Rhinold Schultz and John McFarland. Seated, from left: Max Bartosh, William Bebech, Chuck Goodrick and John Powell. Photo courtesy of John Schultz.
After the Brookfield Fire Department was formed, Rhinold Schultz was named the first chief. He, along with other early members, was very dedicated to the department. They built the first fire station, and built or reconditioned many of the department’s vehicles.
“Every night, after he worked at the school, he’d go up there (fire station) about six o’clock and work ’til 10,” John Schultz said. “They were always doing something.”
“Something” included holding cookouts and dances to raise money for the fire department; setting up the ladies auxiliary, which supported the firefighters at fire scenes; or organizing the annual Brookfield Homecoming, a community fair that raised money for the department. Schultz’s mother, Alice, was instrumental in these endeavors. John Schultz became a social member of the department.
The department responded to the big snow of 1950. Schultz remembers his dad borrowing heavy equipment from local companies to clear the parking lots at the fire station and Brookfield’s schools, and then plowing roads.
“He said, when he went down Obermiyer Road, the only thing he knew where the road was was the telephone poles and the top of mailboxes,” Schultz said.
One aspect of the department that is little remembered now is that members of the fire department would help families rebuild after their homes were damaged or destroyed by fire, Schultz said. Many of the members had skills honed in local mills that made them able construction workers, he said.
In 1953, Rhinold Schultz suffered second- and third-degree burns during a welding mishap on one of the fire trucks. He recovered, but the emotional demands of being fire chief eventually led to his resignation in 1954, John Schultz said. He recalled an incident in which the fire department was searching for a man who was missing. The man was found dead along Yankee Run having fallen into a campfire.
“That bothered him so bad,” John Schultz said of his father. “That was one of the reasons he gave it up.”
Rhinold Schultz died in 1967 at age 55.
Memories of Rhinold Schultz have faded, while many people in town still remember the chiefs who came after him, including Jack Powell, Nick Bartolin and Keith Barrett, John Schultz said.
“He (Rhinold Schultz) put his share of time in that department,” John Schultz said. “He never really was recognized for it.”
My father was Jack Powell and I remember him responding to calls. All were volunteers.