Tales are told of firefighters’ early banquets
Posted: May 9, 2014, Living Lake Country Reporter
On Jan. 30, 1922, the then-9-year-old Sussex Main Street School caught fire and was totally destroyed, with only four brick walls left standing. In quick order the then-unincorporated village had a special meeting of the Sussex-Templeton Advancement Association and the end result was the formation of the Sussex Fire Department.
There was a crescendo of ideas to raise money, recruit firefighters and buy equipment. This endeavor was led by John P. Kraemer. The preliminary work was capped by a May 2, 1922, meeting at the Lisbon town hall (today the reception room of the Sussex Wheaton Franciscan health care center). This was followed a week later, on May 9th, when it was finalized and the fire company was founded.
Stag night
Each year following there was a stag night outing for the all-male membership of the company, a sort of founders birthday party for the 33-member firefighter company.
For the first 30-plus years the banquet usually consisted of Oyster soup (into the 1950s), when it was converted into an annual banquet that the wives were invited to attend. By the early 1980s women were allowed to become firefighters in the department.
Now, over the years, things have happened at these banquets, besides eating, raising a few beverages and giving out awards.
Recently I was asked to recount some of the funny points and some of the hijinks that have occurred at these annual founders parties.
Jack Clarey
There is a story about the 1940s, when there was a banquet at the Sussex Community Hall. Towards midnight a local character, Jack Clarey, who had relatives in the fire department, was a gate crasher. He came in with a buzz and the firefighters catered to his thirst, and Jack just plain got tired and fell asleep. As the firefighters left the community hall, they wondered what to do with snoring Jack. So they put him on top of a table, and left him stretched out, sleeping away.
The next morning Rudy Kerstein came to the village hall and as caretaker he was going to start cleaning up. He found Jack still asleep, and roused him to go home.
Now in the 1940s, several of the firefighters were also on the Sussex Village Board. They had a village meeting the following Thursday and made a motion, and sent a letter to Jack Clarey, charging him for a “night’s lodging in the village hall.”
New uniforms
Then there was the night of a 1960s banquet when all the firefighters reported to the banquet fully dressed in the newly issued formal fireman’s uniforms. Well, about 11 p.m. the Sussex Fire Department was alerted that Pewaukee had a major house fire that was threatening to set fire to adjacent homes.
The Sussex firefighters donned their fire coats, hats and boots over their pressed uniforms, and away the equipment went to Pewaukee. Now the Pewaukee firemen noticed that the Sussex firemen had dress uniforms under their fire coats and boots, and asked about this.
The quick answer was, “Well, in Sussex we always wear our dress uniforms when we report for duty.” Never telling them the real truth.
Missing bottle
Then there was the tale of the missing bottle of booze. For several years in the late 1960s the founders banquet always had a contingent of old former retired firefighters who were guests of the event. Then, on cleaning up the following morning, the bottles of booze that were consumed were counted, and each year somehow a bottle of bourbon was missing, and this happened a couple of years in a row.
So the following year there was a designated bar server who watched the inventory closely, even to the point of removing himself from the immediate area, but still spying.
There were a few old cronies, including former Chief George Podolske and former firefighter and longtime village President Charles Busse, who hung around the banquet for food and the awards, and then suddenly left for a card game at Busse’s place with a couple of other old-timer retired firefighters, and they helped themselves to a full bottle of booze as they left.
Problem solved but the decision was made to let the old-timers have their fun, and they were not remonstrated against.
And there are more
Then there were the stories about Philip “Chinny” Stier and Vilas Kraut that would fill two more columns if told. Year 2014 saw the annual founders day celebration held again, 92 years later, this time at the Bone Yard banquet hall, and there will probably be a 93rd next year, and so on