'Last man standing': At nearly 90, retired Taunton firefighter has lifetime of stories

TAUNTON — “He’s one of the last of that generation,” said Twila McInnis about her father, retired Taunton Fire Lt. William Pittsley, who served from 1965 to 1997.

His son, Michael Pittsley, followed in his footsteps and has served with the Taunton Fire Department since early 1996. 

William, who turns 90 this year, said his father is currently the second oldest surviving retiree of the Taunton Fire Department.

We thought we'd take this opportunity as William turns 90 to ask father and son what's changed and what's stayed the same at the Taunton Fire Department over the past nearly 60 years.

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What's changed? What's stayed the same?

“Back-in-my-day” moments between generations are wonderful opportunities to learn the then-and-now about a profession.

“It’s a different world he is seeing than what my father dealt with,” McInnis said.

Michael had to go attend a fire academy, like many his generation or younger, before his hire. William took one written exam, passed it, and learned everything else “on-the-job.”

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The turnout gear and apparel used today is far more advanced and protective than what William remembers, referred to as “rubber goods.”

The self-contained breathing apparatus — aka the Scott Air-Pak — is now common tech for firefighting. William remembers not having them, early in his career, when fighting fires on the line.

“Before air packs, you would see guys hanging out of windows trying to get a breath of fresh air,” William said.

EMT training wasn’t as prevalent then as it is today, said Michael. William said he and his generation still learned CPR.

“But you saved lives, right?,” asked McInnis.

Said William: “I hope so.”

A dose of reality came, centered around an old movie trope when depicting firefighters:  hanging and holding on by the side and back of the firetruck when heading to a fire.

“They used to ride on the back of the engine. You wouldn’t allow that today,” said Michael.

William recalled an incident many years back involving the Freetown Fire Department where the engine hit a bump on the road, and a member of the crew hanging on the back flew off the truck and died.

Said Michael to William, “Yet you still wanted this job.”

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Tragedy at age 3

Born in Raynham in 1934, William Pittsley lost both his parents at age 3 in a car accident. He would live with his grandmother and uncle in Freetown for his youth. After graduating from Dighton High School, he spent some time with college studies while working as a machinist with a jewelry company.

He would eventually enlist in the U.S. Air Force and served from 1953 to1957 as a radar operator, spending two of those years stationed in North Africa.

When he got out of the service and returned home, William said, “there were no jobs in the area when I got discharged.” He had to travel for work for periods, working for aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney in Connecticut as a machinist. He would eventually find machinist jobs closer in the region, like Taunton and Attleboro.

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How William became a firefighter

William said aside from an uncle he had very little contact with, he otherwise had no familial connection to firefighting, and never thought about it in his youth as a career. He explained he was looking for a profession that offered benefits and stability. But several firefighters he was working with at the time recommended he take the exam to join.

The idea was squashed, at first, by his first wife, Michael and Twila’s mother, who didn’t like him working nights, or the dangerous conditions of the job. But about a year or two later, a friend convinced him to take the firefighter’s exam with him.

“He said, if I pass, I don’t have to take the job,” said William.

The irony was his friend flunked the test, while William passed with high marks.

“He said it was common knowledge. He didn’t know what he was talking about,” said William, who chose to study what was needed according to his firefighter friends.

Not long after William went to work for the Taunton Fire Department in 1965, his wife “blew the wind out of my sails” with her objections to the job, resulting in a strained marriage.

Michael said his father took a leave of absence for at least a year to try to fix the marriage. But ultimately he returned to the Fire Department. William said when his wife said “No, you’re not,” he called her bluff. “He said, ‘Yes I am’ and that’s how they got divorced,” said Michael, who added “there were other issues” in the marriage.

On the decision he made, William said he “has no regrets.”

Memorable fire with flying oxygen tanks

A stand-out incident William recalls was a major fire at the Taunton Oxygen Equipment Co. on West Water Street right after he made lieutenant, around 10 years or so into his career.

“We pulled out of the station, and we could see black smoke rolling in the air,” said Willliam, who was assigned to the nearby Weir Street station at the time.

As the engine got closer to the site, William recalls seeing women running the opposite way along the sidewalk.

“I said to myself, ‘Boy, we got a worker, here!’” William said.

William recalls arriving at the scene and seeing oxygen tanks blowing up and flying in every direction, "taking off like jets all across the parking lot.”

“We still had to fight the fire,” he said, adding all they could do was “hope they don’t slam into us.”

The fire eventually spread to the roof of the aluminum factory next door. It took several hours to extinguish both fires. William said they were lucky as there were no fatalities and no collisions with oxygen tanks.

Calm presence in a crisis

Michael and Twila recall a few incidents during their childhood which show that even when their father was “off-the-clock,” he was still doing his job.

Twila recalled her father taking them to ice skate on winter at Memorial Park in Taunton. The ice was too thin to handle the weight of skaters, and people collapsed in as it gave way.  William immediately sprang into action.

“I was lucky I had a big enough rope in my truck,” he said.

Twila recalls seeing her father “so calm” during the entire ordeal.

Another incident remembered occurred in Berkley. William and his kids were driving by a home on County Street when the property’s fields, about a half-acre acre, were on fire.  William pulled over and ran to the home’s front door, while the kids remained in the car.

When William knocked on the door, the resident opened the door, panicky, and ran out of the house moments after William entered. He later deduced, when finding a copy of the town’s phone directory on the coffee table, that the resident forgot the number for Berkley Fire Department.

“This was before 911,” said Michael, when you had to know the phone number of your local police or fire department.

After calling Berkley Fire, William went back to his car to wait for first responders. He found young Michael crying and scared. Thinking it was Twila’s doing, he yelled “What did you hit him for?”

Said Twila, “I didn’t hit him,” explaining to her father that they had watched that stranger run out of his house, and their father not following after, which made Michael fear the worst.

Generational love and profound admiration

Both children express a profound admiration for their father and the sacrifices he made.

Michael said he never felt pressured by his father to follow in his footsteps, and, unlike William, Michael graduated from college.

But “seeing his enjoyment and satisfaction” helping people and doing his job influenced him greatly toward firefighting.

Michael is grateful he got to respond to one fire with his father. it wasn't a memorable fire in itself. It was a house fire in an abandoned house, where squatters had lit a fire inside and "the fire wasn’t too bad.” But they got to go together.

Twila agreed with Michael, saying “he was a role model to us,” which is what prompted her to take her own path into public service by having a career as a nurse.

Along with his two children, Michael and Twila, William Pittsley also has nine grand-children and three great-grandchildren to keep his legacy alive.

Post-retirement, William said he tried staying connected with the Fire Department, through get-togethers with fellow retirees, such as fishing.  Over the years, his generation of retirees have passed away.

“I’m the last man standing,” William said,

This article originally appeared on The Taunton Daily Gazette: Retired Taunton Firefighter William Pittsley is 'last man standing'