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Stoolman built legacy, family of firefighters
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · July 23, 2008
On occasion, a parent’s professional life may overlap the personal, like the small-town teacher who gets her daughter in her class, the dentist whose child is also his patient, or the carpenter who builds a home for his newly married son.
You don’t want it to happen when you’re a firefighter, though.
Dick Stoolman, 71, who stepped down June 30 after about 40 years as the West Branch fire chief, had one of those moments.
Over his more than 50 years on the department so far, he’s seen people mangled in car accidents and burned in homes. He saw the old high school burn to the ground, brought the historic Hoover House fire under control and was chief when the department spent 16 days fighting the Mid American pipeline fire, burning 534 feet underground.
But then came May 5, 1984.
His wife, Dora, starts the story by telling how she had a feeling, an intuition, that their son, Todd — “our wild one” — would be killed in a car wreck.
She went so far as to make a big supper of “greasy food” to keep Todd and his friends in the house that day.
Then the “fire phone” — which connected all firefighters at once — rang about 6 p.m. and Dora heard there was a car accident near the Presidential Inn. Since Todd was right there with her, she didn’t think much about it.
Until the doorbell rang.
“I didn’t want to answer,” she said.
She paused, but then went to the door. Mayor Dick Rex was there, saying her husband was asking for her. At first, she said that Dick didn’t need her. Rex insisted.
“It’s your daughter,” he said.
Rex, who has known Stoolman for about 50 years, said he saw him “acting professionally as chief and as a parent” that day.
Jodee Stoolman and two friends — Teri Emrich and Linda Fieseler — had been riding in a convertible when it was rear-ended. All three girls were injured. Emrich later died; Fieseler was partially paralyzed. Jodee, at the time, was unconscious, and Dick had been unable to wake her.
“I thought Dora could get Jodee to come around,” Dick said.
Jodee, a 1980 West Branch High School graduate and a softball star in both high school and college, had suffered a serious neck injury.
“We thought we’d have an invalid,” Dora said.
Jodee’s accident was one of the “more traumatic” calls for her husband, Dora said.
“Because we were so closely involved,” she said.
Family of firefighters
But Jodee would recover and go on to eventually ... become a firefighter. So did all of the rest of the Stoolman children — Jeff, Todd and Kevin.
But the elder Stoolman said he never asked any of them to join the all-volunteer department.
Todd, who joined 21 years ago, agreed that his father never asked him to join, but after growing up around it, he knows that was a big influence.
“I think he wanted us to join, but left it up to us to do that,” Todd said.
Todd said he thought it was a “neat thing” when his father responded to fire calls, though that feeling changed in high school.
“I thought he spent too much time away from home,” Todd said. “I think he missed out on things with us kids and we missed out on things.”
Kevin, who joined the department 30 years ago, said he thought it was “pretty cool” knowing his father was a firefighter and fire chief.
“When I was younger, I hung out (at the fire department),” he said. “I just knew I wanted to do it. He never pushed.”
Todd said he and Kevin, the two brothers who remain on the fire department (Jeff has since moved to Texas) are trying to balance fatherhood and firefighting. But Todd can’t deny that his father has built an impressive department over the years.
“It is obviously something he loves,” Todd said. “He’s done a great job if you see the equipment we’ve got.”
And the department’s reputation is a product of that passion as well, he said. Stoolman was presented with numerous well-wishes, certificates, mementos and gifts, including a refurbished 50-year-old fire truck, when the department marked his five decades of service back in January.
“He definitely deserves that,” Todd said. “It shows what kind of respect he’s gotten ... and he’s got a great deal of knowledge about fires.”
Vid Johnson is a West Branch native, former editor of the West Branch Times and now a state Senator from Ocheyedan. He also served on the fire department alongside his brother, Kurt, and the two of them had Dora as a babysitter when they were young.
As tough as Stoolman is, Johnson thinks Dora is tougher.
“She is very much a part of the firefighter family,” he said.
Stoolman said Dora has been very supportive over the years, even when he was gone three or four nights a week to meetings in Cedar and Johnson counties.
Joining the department
Stoolman said he wanted to be a firefighter because his father had been with the department in Glidden.
Stoolman said there was a waiting list at the time, but he spent a year and a half attending meetings and responding to calls. He remembers being “voted down” the first time his name came up, and chuckles about it now.
“I think it was because I passed one of the firemen once,” he said.
But in February 1958, he finally got on.
Back then, firefighters “ate smoke,” because the department only had two or three air packs for the two or three calls they would go on each month.
He worked his way up the ranks, to truck captain and then captain, before being voted up to fire chief in 1967 at age 30, replacing Murry Gibson, who doubled as postmaster at the time.
Gibson, he said, took Stoolman under his wing, and the two attended many training sessions and meetings together so Stoolman could learn everything he could.
“I was gung-ho,” he said.
Gibson endorsed Stoolman as his replacement.
Fire chief is a one-year term. Stoolman has been elected to the position for all but three years of the last 40. In the early 1980s, Steve Jensen served for two years and Ken Jeffries served for one year as chief.
This year, the fire chief position became a four-year term for the first time. Stoolman had been working on phasing himself out and he and the department created the position of “fire administrator,” also a four-year term. The two positions will work side-by-side as son Kevin adjusts to his new role as chief and Stoolman handles a lot of the paperwork and attends a lot of the meetings.
Leaving the position after so long is hard, he said, but bittersweet. He said he would not have been willing to leave if Kevin had not wanted to become chief.
Brian Seymour, president of the Iowa Fireman’s Association, presented Stoolman with a certificate for 50 years of service back in January. He said he’s only handed out a few of those.
“I wouldn’t say they’re many,” he said. “It’s not something we do on a regular basis.”
Heart for service, people
It’s notable that Stoolman is not retiring entirely, but rather in steps, current Mayor Sandy Hatfield said.
“He’s taught his whole family the importance of community service by setting the example himself,” she said.
Stoolman is known for his “rough, gruff exterior,” she said, “but he’s a very compassionate man.”
Hatfield first met the fire chief while working as the activity coordinator for Crestview Nursing Home. Stoolman’s neighbor, Hattie Wilhelm, became a resident and Stoolman often visited. When Hatfield organized a fund-raiser for a bird aviary, Stoolman gave a donation because Wilhelm loved birds and even kept some in her home.
Kurt Johnson, a 25-year member of the fire department, said the compassion extends to Stoolman’s work. One time, a woman who was giving blood in town got a phone call from her frantic daughter, who was too upset to be fully understood. The woman was able to figure out that someone had been run over, so she became hysterical.
Johnson and Stoolman “knew it was bad” and called for Air Care while rushing to the scene. When they got there, they found out that the girl was mentally handicapped, and that the victim was her cat, who was already dead. They called off the helicopter, but Johnson said Stoolman could see the girl was upset, so he picked up the cat and tried to treat it.
“He wanted to show he cared,” Johnson said. “Our adrenaline was pumping so much, but he felt sorry for the girl.”
Stoolman said he has to do a lot more paperwork and take a lot of phone calls from salesmen, but it’s a passion for him.
“It’s in my blood,” he said.
Impact on community
Rex said he has not always agreed with Stoolman, but said he has nothing but respect for him.
“He’s due every recognition he receives from near and far,” the former mayor said. “It’s been a pleasure on my part to see him, know him, and see him develop — I applaud what he’s achieved.”
Rex notes that three of Stoolman’s children remain in West Branch.
“As a parent, you are always wanting your children to make something of themselves,” he said. “I’ve gotta believe Dick is satisfied and happy they have made contributions, maintained lives and still work around West Branch and the department.”
Vid Johnson said Stoolman led by example, making him a “real leader.”
“He didn’t ask any volunteer to do what he wouldn’t do,” Johnson remembers.
Johnson remembers working some late nights at the Times, which was only two blocks from the fire department. At the time, the department was on the second floor of the Hoover House. But even if he was awake, that didn’t mean he could respond faster than Stoolman.
“If there was a call, I was right out the back of the building and driving to the fire department, but I always had to look north on First Street to see if his headlights were coming down,” he said. “How he was able to be there on a late-night call as quick as I was, I’ll never know.”
Stoolman said his goal was to make the department one of the better ones in the state.
He said he stresses safety and is glad that no firefighter has ever received a life-threatening injury in his time as chief.
Stoolman is happy that he has been able to build the volunteer base, training and equipment levels. Because the fire department has achieved an Insurance Services Office (ISO) rating of five, that helps draw industry to West Branch. He said that rating makes him proud.
“People think we buy fancy trucks,” he said. “But we have to buy the tools to give (industry) good insurance rates.”
With 140 square miles to cover, Stoolman said he strove to have the fire trucks heading out the door within three minutes of the call. The department’s boundaries reach to Solon, Iowa City, Cedar River and Highway 6, making it one of the largest in the state. Since adding first responders, calls skyrocketed to more than 400 last year for the first time.
Hard work
Stoolman remembered some of the fire calls that rank among the most disturbing.
One was a fire between Christmas and New Year’s Day where a mother and her children were burned in a house fire.
“I came home after that fire and washed my hands every half hour,” he said. “We were digging through that brick house to find them.”
He also remembers a number of wrecks on Super Bowl Sunday. Roads were icy and an Iowa State Patrol officer was helping a husband, wife and daughter walk from one car accident to his patrol car when another ISP patrol car slid into the four, throwing them all under the first officer’s vehicle.
And then there was a truck driver who was found still holding the steering wheel after 8,000 gallons of gas caught fire in his tanker.
“I hate to see death anymore,” Stoolman said. “Your emotions, when you get as old as I am, are hard to control.”
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