Portland Veteran Firemen’s Association Memorial Sunday Service

Service held in remembrance of fallen firefighters

What:   Next Sunday, the City of Portland Fire Department, Portland Veteran Firemen’s Association and the City of South Portland Fire Department will hold their annual Memorial Sunday Service in honor of firefighters who lost their lives in service to these two cities. First held in 1892 to remember all deceased firefighters, and now held on the first Sunday in October every year, this service has become an important tradition for the surviving family and friends of those firefighters who lost their lives in the line of duty as well as the firefighting community.

The names of twenty Portland firefighters and two South Portland firefighters will be read as a bell tolls at the Portland Veteran Firemen’s Monument, erected in 1913, at the Forest City Cemetery. The names to be read include Hoseman Thomas Burnham of Engine Company 2, who lost his life April 28, 1903 fighting the Holyoke Wharf fire that a month later claimed the life of Hoseman Clarence Johnson of Engine Company 3, Deputy Chief William Steele who died as a result of the inhalation of nitric acid fumes from a carboy spill in the basement of the HH Hay’s Drug Store in 1913, and Private Thomas O’Connor, who lost his life July 12, 1960, when Engine 4 and Ladder 3 collided at the intersection of Spring and Brackett Streets responding to an alarm on Orchard Street. The memorial serves as a reminder to the community of the risks firefighters face as well as the deep connections firefighters hold for each other and the cities they promise to protect.

The service begins with a procession led by bag pipe to the Portland Veteran Firemen’s Association Monument. Members of both departments and the veterans association will speak followed by Roll Call of the members who died in the line of duty. The memorial concludes with the laying of floral wreaths.  Each year more than fifty family members attend the service to pay their respects.

When: Sunday, October 7, 2012            

Noon

Where: Forest City Cemetery

232 Lincoln Street, South Portland