By Louise Deegan – Originally published in the 2017 Founder’s Review Magazine
As you may have heard, the former South Marion Volunteer Fire House near the intersection of U.S. 441-484 has been sold and is due for demolition to make way for a new business. The Belleview Volunteer Fire Department was organized in 1955 by a group of local businessmen with hopes of saving lives and structures in Belleview.
There are several fires I can remember or have heard about. My mother tells of Gale’s Store, where AI E. Gators Car Wash is now, burning down when she was a young girl. At the time, all they had was a water tank mounted on iron wheels that the men would pull to fires. It stood by the old library.
There was a large iron ring hanging behind the building that they would strike with an iron rod to sound the alarm.
I remember the short-order food stand on C-25 owned and operated by one of the Hames boys that burned down in the late 1940s. I lived about a half-mile from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel when it exploded from a gas leak on March 14, 1964. The explosion rattled the windows in our house, and the flames shot up higher than the large oak trees. I also recall the Green Shelter, where Burger King is now, burning. I lived four miles out of town and saw the smoke. I drove into Belleview with my daughter and a friend to see what had happened. As I stood on the street behind the restaurant, one of the waitresses came up to another employee and said, “Tell him I got the cash drawer.”
After the volunteers organized, they built a fire station where Magnolia Hall is now, behind NAPA, with one fire truck and a siren. They operated this way for years and managed to do a lot of good.
During the Christmas season, the firemen would bring Santa Claus to Lake Lillian on a Sunday afternoon, riding on the back of the fire truck, and give out bags with an orange, an apple, and candy to the children. They would then go to the Black section of town to give out bags to the kids there. This was during segregation times.
My family has been involved with the fire department in one way or another. In the 1950s, my father owned a sawmill behind St. Theresa’s Catholic Church and was burning his slab pile one night. The fire department came down thinking it was a house fire. When they found out it was the slab pile, they asked if they could put it out for practice. Daddy said yes. What they didn’t know was that it took him until 2:00 a.m. to restart the fire and finish burning the slabs.
My uncle, George Scott, was chief in 1964. My husband, Don, was a captain in the fire department in the mid-1960s, and I was the president of the Ladies Auxiliary until we moved four miles out of town and could no longer hear the siren. Don’s father, James Deegan, and his mother, Rita, were involved in the department until Jim’s death in 1971. The firemen stood honor guard at his funeral.
The wives of the firemen organized the Ladies Auxiliary to help raise money to purchase helmets, coats, boots, and other equipment they needed to fight fires. Their efforts included craft classes, sales, ham dinners, and a Christmas party for the children. During the 1960s, the firemen collected slightly used toys, fixed them up, and delivered them along with food to needy families in town.
To help finance their growth, letters were sent out to the community asking for donations. Also, when the firehouse, which is now set to be torn down, was being built, you could donate to purchase a block.
Phil Thompson told me that those helping build the firehouse would write their names on pieces of paper and drop them in the openings of the blocks as they were being laid. I hope they can retrieve some of those papers when the building is demolished. Now Marion County has a paid fire department, Station 18, also known as the “Hames Road Hooligans,” located on 55th Ave. Rd.
I would like to thank the women who served in the auxiliary, kept meals warm when the men were called out during mealtime, and calmed the fears of the children who knew their fathers were going to fight fires in the middle of the night. I also want to thank the many people who donated money and time to the department, and the civic-minded men who worked so hard to organize and run the Volunteer Department that has served not only Belleview but the south end of the county. We owe you a big THANK YOU.
Following are memories of former volunteer firemen who gave many hours of their time serving the South Marion Community:
Jimmy Lawson
Jimmy was born in Omega, GA, on September 10, 1940. His parents had a farm, and he worked on it for a while. His older brother worked in a carpet factory, while Jimmy took a job at a gas station. The farm wasn’t enough to support the family, so in 1953 they moved to Ocala, near Jensen’s Dairy. His uncle, Lawrence Norman, worked at Jensen’s, and while Jimmy never worked there, he fondly remembers the fresh milk from the cooler, saying it was “so GOOD.” Jensen’s had once been a stage stop.
Later, the family moved to Luffinan Road in Ocklawaha, where Jimmy’s father worked on a chicken farm. Jimmy’s first car was a 1949 Ford, which he bought in Georgia and drove to Florida. He worked at the Kayo Gas Station in Belleview during the night shift, where he often grew bored due to the lack of traffic. One night, he decided to burn rubber just for fun. Eddie Marszaliek, the night cop, came over and asked what he was doing. Then he joked, “I guess you think you can get away with anything because you’re dating the mayor’s daughter.” At the time, Jimmy was indeed dating Virginia Artman, daughter of Mayor Clark Artman. Jimmy suspects he woke Eddie up, as he was known for sleeping in his car across from the station while on duty.
Jimmy and Virginia married on December 22, 1962. They went to Georgia for their honeymoon, only to find that all their relatives had come to Florida for Christmas. They have two daughters, June and Jodi. June has one daughter and one son, and Jodi has three daughters, with seven great-grandchildren altogether. Sadly, Virginia passed away on February 10, 2009.
Jimmy joined the Belleview Volunteer Fire Department when Phil Thompson was the Civil Defense Director for Marion County. He recalls trips to Camp Blanding in Starke to pick up Army surplus trucks, which Charles Craven converted into water trucks. Charles was skilled at building the equipment they needed. They also obtained CB units for communication. The department raised funds to build a firehouse at the intersection of US 441-301 and SR 484, often through turkey shoots, which were popular at the time. They also sold blocks for the building’s construction. Eventually, the City of Belleview took over the department, which became the South Marion Volunteer Fire Department.
Vincent Razzano offered to build the firehouse if the department bought all the materials. One memorable call was to the fire at Six-Gun Territory. The firemen were already practicing in their gear on SR 35 (Baseline Road), so they were the first to arrive. They sprayed all the water they had and even drained a nearby fish pond, spraying the water and fish onto the flames before Ocala’s fire department arrived.
Jimmy’s first run was south of Pedro, where a man who had robbed a Jiffy Store crashed his Pontiac in a watermelon field. When the deputy arrived, the man shot himself under the chin but survived. The fire department’s Econoline van, serving as an ambulance, transported him to Munroe Memorial Hospital before he was transferred to Gainesville, where he passed away.
On his first fire run, Jimmy and his cousin, Gene Tapp, entered a mobile home on 110th Street, where they found a couch on fire. As they pulled it away from the wall, a severely burned man fell onto the floor. The smell of burning flesh is something Jimmy says he’ll never forget. The ambulance crew refused to enter, so Jimmy and Gene had to go back inside, place the man in a body bag, and carry him out.
The fire department also responded to several train wrecks, including one by the old Ice Plant, which was loaded with Irish potatoes. Charles Craven used a backhoe to bury the leftover potatoes, though some were taken by people. Another incident involved a semi-truck hit by a train after getting stuck near Certified Groceries. While the sheriff’s deputies guarded the cab, they didn’t realize people were stealing meat from the back of the truck.
By October 1973, the fire department had acquired land for a new firehouse and posted a sign reading “Future Home of the South Marion Volunteer Fire Dept.” Jimmy Lawson served as Fire Chief for the Belleview Volunteer Fire Department from 1966 to 1968, and again for the South Marion Volunteer Fire Dept. from 1974 to 1978. He praised the men who served, recalling the hard work of volunteers like James and Johnny Brannon, twin brothers who drove the ambulance and later became EMTs.
Jimmy and Virginia moved to Summerfield, where he worked for Frank Smith for 14-15 years, farming, baling hay, and handling cattle. Now retired, Jimmy has COPD and emphysema. He remembers when Belleview’s first convenience store, Qwik King, was built, and how it led to a boom in new stores. Traffic in Belleview has increased dramatically since then. The town had no traffic lights, but after US 441-27 was built over the railroad tracks to Leesburg and the highway was widened, Belleview began to expand. Jimmy hopes the current City Hall, a 90-year-old piece of Belleview’s history, will be preserved.
