By David Fleet
dfleet@mihomepaper.com
Hadley Twp. — David Ivory still recalls the excitement of joining his father firefighter Malcolm “Mike” Ivory on an alarm in Hadley Township.
“When I was a kid back in the 40s we got to ride along to a fire,” recalled David, “It’s been 70 years or more since I did that but it’s been in my blood ever since.”
David’s interest and commitment to the Hadley Township Fire Department ingrained decades ago would prompt 60 years of late night fire alarms, battling township blazes and providing service to the community often during the worst of times.
On Sept. 30, Ivory who joined the department June 1, 1964 stepped down as the longest serving member in the history of the Hadley Township Fire Department.
“No doubt I’ll miss it,” said Ivory, 78. “You know it’s time to retire when you fall down and it takes a long time to get up. The department is a close knit group and requires a lot of trust. My dad was a fireman, my brother was a fireman and now both my sons along with two grandsons will carry on the family tradition.”
Ivory attended Lapeer High School and following graduation in 1960 worked as an apprentice at Chevrolet engineering in the Warren Technical Center. In 1964 his brother Clinton was injured in a silo accident on a neighbor’s family farm in Hadley Township.
“I had completed my apprenticeship at General Motors about that same time as the accident so I came home help Clinton milk cows and have been farming ever since,” he said. “It changed my whole career. We milked cows for 35 years on about 165 acres, but today it’s just cash crops. Farming has been a good living but, you’re not going to be a millionaire at it.”
David joined the fire department with his brother and father.
“When your family serves in the fire department it’s just in your blood to join,” he said. “You did not fight fires when you first started on the department, rather you’d load water into the trucks among other tasks. You had to wait until the old guys retired and along the way learn the process from people in the department. The knowledge is passed on from one firefighter to another.”
Ivory said that grass fires were way more common back 50 years ago.
“When they started picking up trash curbside and eliminated the trash barrels for outside burning the number of fires reduced drastically,” he said. “Also, each spring it was often dry so when the trains ran between Oxford and Lapeer there were always grass fires near the tracks.”
Ivory recalled a massive mile long grass fire between Stewart and Hadley roads in 1968 that required the assistance of nine departments.
“Locally, Lake Orion had the only grass truck on that fire,” he said. “About a year after that Hadley Township had one of their own. It was needed.”
Ivory, who also served 35 years as department secretary/treasurer, was uncertain of the number of fire calls but they came at all hours of the night.
“Many times you left the cows you were milking and went on a fire run,” he said. “My wife, Maryann, would often, if I were lucky, do the milking when I was gone. She passed away about 25 years ago. She would have joined the fire department if there were women in the department back in those days.”
A lot has changed about the fire department over the years, he said.
“Technology is a big factor now,” he said. “The trucks are computerized. It’s a lot more efficient to put out a fire now.”
Ivory witnessed the transition from fire sirens downtown to fire phones set off by the local phone company to firefighters homes to pagers and today cell phones.
Ivory said it’s been a good time serving the community which also included the Hadley Township Planning Commission for 35 years.
“I put up with eight fire chiefs over those years,” he said. “The young ones should know it takes a lot of dedication. If anyone is interested, go check it out, it’s been a great occupation.”