Felix

My great-grandfather is being honored by NYS in October for being a fallen firefighter. In 1945, the steamer he was on was hit by a train on the way to a call - ironically, it was the same railroad company that he worked for full-time. My grandmother was 15 when he died and had 2 younger brothers - Felix (10) and Charlie, my uncle who passed away a few weeks ago, was 5. It's quite interesting how people respond to tragedy differently at different ages - my grandmother, who had to grow up too quickly and take care of her grieving mother and younger brothers, never wanted anything to do with the fire company again. My Uncle Charles saw his father as a hero and spent his whole life in service to different fire departments and fire police. When Charlie died, he got his own hero send-off from the FD - it was beautiful.

Anyway, since Charlie died, I've been in charge of getting the bio and the photo done for the book that the state is doing. Here are photos of my great-grandfather Felix: