At 80, he's passing on torch

A Whitman call firefighter for 40 years, Schmitt set to retire

Robert H. Schmitt, 80, is retiring after 40 years as a call firefighter with the Whitman Fire Department. "It's time," he said. "It's a young man's game." (Paul E. Kandarian for the Boston Globe)

WHITMAN - One day, Timothy P. Travers, then just a child, was delivering papers to a house on Grove Street in Whitman when he heard the town fire whistle blow. At the same time, a bell inside the house started ringing, and out bounded the home's owner, heading for the fire station.

"I wondered what the heck was going on," said Travers, now 52 and the town's fire chief.

What was going on then, four decades ago, is still going on - Robert H. Schmitt fighting fires.

But not for much longer. At 80, Schmitt is ready to retire from an unusually long career with Whitman's auxiliary firefighting force.

During the department's regular annual "Firefighter Memorial Sunday" on June 8, Schmitt will be presented with a gold retirement badge. "It's time," said Schmitt, still in great shape and looking all of 70. "It's a young man's game."

His retirement will mark the end of an era of sorts.

"He was a mentor to me. He was to a lot of guys," Travers said of the man who once lived right around the corner. "When I was a young call firefighter 35 years ago, he'd still beat me out the door."

Back when Schmitt started fighting fires, there were no regular department staffers. The force was made up of call firefighters who had bells in their homes that corresponded with the shrieking station whistle. They would respond, put out the blaze, and, for their effort, the town paid them $2 per fire.

These days, the department is fully professional, has 20 permanent firefighters and as many call personnel who are paid $15 to $22 per fire, depending on the level of training and medical certification.

But "it's not about the money," Schmitt said. "Never was."

Schmitt doesn't think call firefighters are a dying breed; in many rural towns - those far from bigger communities, so it's hard to rely on mutual aid - call firefighters are still the first line of defense in fires. Schmitt said there are 13,000 call firefighters statewide.

Schmitt is one of the few who still have the bell ring at home when the station alarm goes off.

For many years, Schmitt was vice president of administration for the former American Sandpaper Co. in nearby Rockland. He credits the company with being "very good about letting me go during the day to answer calls."

Over his nearly half-century as a firefighter, Schmitt has fought thousands of fires. He has never been injured on the job, owing, "to being smart or just getting out of the way," he said with a laugh.

In 1991, it was getting out of the way that saved him. On the job fighting a huge fire at a former department store on South Avenue that had been turned into a gym, Schmitt and other firefighters were working near the building when someone shouted that the wall was about to fall. It went seconds after Schmitt and the others had run from the collapsing structure.

He recalls big fires such as the Toll House Restaurant blaze on New Year's Eve in 1984 that destroyed that legendary landmark, the birthplace of the Toll House cookie.

Other fires also trigger memories, too often tragic. He recalls three small children dying from smoke inhalation in a Corthell Avenue house fire in 1966; he and another firefighter had tried to resuscitate the youngest on the way to the hospital. He also answered the call the November night in 2000 when the town lost three others in a fire - State Trooper John Nee, his wife, and mother-in-law.

Although Schmitt is retiring from firefighting, he said, it's not like he will be doing nothing.

"I'll still be around, helping any way I can," Schmitt said. He will retain his other town position as the Whitman emergency management director. He also plans to help renovate an old ambulance, donated by Fallon Ambulance, into a hospitality van used at fires in Whitman and other communities to take food and beverages to firefighters.

But he will probably disconnect the fire bell that rings in his home.

"My wife will be grateful for that," said Schmitt, husband of Grace for the past 59 years. "No more bell going off over the bed in the middle of the night."

Paul E. Kandarian can be reached at Kandarian@globe.com.