A salute to Merritton firefighters
Ken Service had his orders. He and his crew had to hold that doorway.
Despite the flames, smoke and the building crumbling around them, they had to keep the doorway open.
“We were sent inside the theatre at first when we got there and the building was falling down. The beams, the ceiling were falling down,” said Service of the 1973 fire that gutted Town Cinemas on St. Paul Street. “Our commander told us go to the rear door and our job was to fight the fire there and keep it clear in case the firefighters inside had to escape.”
Service, along with fellow volunteer firefighters Hew Lamping and John Bowman from the Merritton fire department, crouched in the doorway of the burning landmark and blasted water into the building.
Standing behind them was then St. Catharines Standard photographer Denis Cahill, who captured an image of the trio fighting the flames.
The picture was published in The Standard as part a full page of photos of the theatre fire — and will now stand as an icon for the defunct volunteer fire department.
On Saturday at the Merritton cenotaph, a historical plaque in honour of the Merritton unit will be erected. On the bronze plaque is a relief of Cahill’s photo.
The effort to build some manner of memorial to the Merritton volunteers has been slowly building for years. The drive for the plaque was led by John Born, whose father Tony Born was a member of the volunteer department.
“I grew up with it,” Born said. “Today, firefighters have cellphones, or I guess pagers before that. But when my dad was volunteer we had the scanner in the house. So I grew up listening to the fire calls.”
The Merritton fire department served the Merritton community from 1888 to 1977, first as the fire department of the Town of Merritton and later as a volunteer unit for St. Catharines.
Service said unlike some volunteer units that were absorbed into the St. Catharines fire department when their towns were folded into the Garden City, the Merritton firefighters opted to resign.
In 1977, the St. Catharines fire chief wanted to put some of his professional firefighters into the Merritton fire hall with the volunteers, Service said.
The fiercely independent volunteer firefighters balked at the idea, and decided to disband.
Born said the independent streak of those volunteers is still present in the Merritton community today.
“For a lot of people this is still Merritton, not St. Catharines,” Born said. “There is a lot of pride here.”
Born and other Merritton residents raised $6,000 needed to buy the plaque, and with former firefighters such as Service navigated the city’s requirements for historic plaques.
“This one is fire engine red,” Born said. “It’s fitting.”
The plaque will be unveiled at the cenotaph at Merritton town hall at the intersection of Merritt and Walnut streets at 11 a.m. A lunch will be held at the Merritton legion hall at 2 Chestnut St. E. after the ceremony.
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