By Jim Morris
As a youngster, I remembered the faint sound of the fire whistle echoing across my dad’s farm from east of the hills that now make up Genesee Farms. Hearing that sound always made my blood run fast and seemed to bring excitement. When it came on a quiet summer night, it was an eerie sound. How well I remember getting up in the middle of the night and looking for the glow in the sky. Many times the phone rang and on the other end would be an Evans, a Jenks, or an Allen telling us of a barn fire somewhere in the neighborhood. Many times we all rose, dressed, piled into the car, and went to lend whatever help we could. I can still picture people like Bill Vandorf, suspenders over his undershirt, his ever-present bent pipe resting on his chin, standing along the side of the ‘46 Chevy pumper with its hood propped open, engine singing and pumping water all night on someone’s life work, which was being reduced to ashes by fire. When the whistle blew, the entire village came to a halt, listened, and responded to the fire house. Never was a thought given to time of day or business at hand. If one was at the feed mill, lumber yard, or Dan Davies blacksmith shop, he had better not be standing in the door looking, or he probably would be run over.