Читать книгу A Small Town Love Story: Colonial Beach, Virginia - Sherryl Woods, Sherryl Woods - Страница 15

SERVING COMMUNITY AND COUNTRY:

Carlton Hudson and Pat Fitzgerald

On his eighty-eighth birthday with a pineapple upside-down cake awaiting him, Carlton Hudson sat in the Colonial Beach Volunteer Rescue Squad Building and reminisced, not just about his years of volunteering with the squad and the fire department but his military service, as well. Like so many others in town, he takes pride in having served his country.

With him on this morning is Pat Fitzgerald, whose volunteer record with the rescue squad has earned her repeated honors locally and in the region.

“Sometimes I think I’ve seen more of Pat over the years than I did my wife,” Carlton says.

His ties to the squad go back to 1950, when he can remember going on calls, when they had to dig in their own pockets to get gas money to run the ambulances to the hospital in Fredericksburg. Bucket drives in town to fund needed supplies or buy new equipment were the norm for many years, with the town kicking in some additional funding.

Pat, who’s now retired from her career as a physical education teacher, driving instructor and coach in the schools, can remember being called away from school many times to answer emergency calls. She took calls at night, as well.

At one point, while Carlton was driving a truck for Norman Oil, he got an emergency call and ditched the truck on the side of the street so that he could shift into volunteer mode and handle the emergency. The passing fire truck stopped so he could jump onboard.

Eventually employers tired of losing staff to these volunteer duties, and the town and county combined to bring in paid workers. Staffing for both the fire department and the rescue squad continues to be supplemented by dedicated volunteers, with each group supported by active ladies auxiliaries who do their share to see that funding needs are met.

1955 Rescue Squad: Gander Frank, Vaughan Drummond, Mac Coates

Colonial Beach Rescue Squad building, 1950s

Colonial Beach Rescue Squad: C. Hudson, E. Moore, E. Fenwick, C. Lee, C. Lee and E. Baird (from left to right)

Carlton and Pat both admit it’s not always easy taking calls when the emergency involves people they know well in the community. Pat recalls going to the scene of a fire at Carlton’s house, in fact, and racing around to the back of the house to show firefighters where to find her longtime friend.

“All Carlton could talk about was the fact that he wasn’t dressed,” she remembers. “I just kept telling him we had to get out of there.”

Hospital workers are always pleased when the volunteers come in with a patient, she says. “Often we know their history. That’s the positive side of it.”

But if Carlton is proud of the years he spent taking calls and driving the ambulance or a fire truck, he’s even more proud of the years he served in Korea.

He was assigned to the motor pool. “If one of the jeeps broke down, I was sent to deal with it.”

He remembers a staff meeting in which his first lieutenant stood up and announced Carlton would be taking over the motor pool. “Two months later he called me back in and said it was in better shape than it had been in years.”

Not only had he kept the equipment in top working condition, he’d improved the record-keeping, too. “I had four of the best mechanics you could find and the best generator man. We got that motor pool straight,” he says proudly.

Colonial Beach Rescue Squad

Colonial Beach Rescue Squad, 1950s

Colonial Beach Rescue Squad, 1969

Vintage Fire Truck

Colonial Beach Rescue Squad, 1955

Colonial Beach Rescue Squad, 1955

At one memorable inspection, he recalls that though they did pass, points were taken off for one thing. “There was grease underneath our fingernails.”