I met Peter Warren at his house on Lancaster County Road. A police scanner crackled in the background as we chatted about his work with the Harvard Fire Department and Ambulance Service.
The fire I think about the most was a chimney fire on West Bare Hill Road. It was at an English Tudor house, down in the woods near Bolton Road. New Year’s Eve, we had a chimney fire, and we got there and I was the second guy up the ladder. The first guy up the ladder was John Hendrickson, and the house had a big, steep, slate roof. John was a lieutenant at the time. So I was following him up the ladder, got to the ridge pole, and started saying, “John, where are we going?” No answer, no John. And I said, “Uh-oh! John, what’s going on?”
And all of a sudden he says, “I’m coming, Peter.” He’s coming up behind me. He slid off the roof and fell into a snowbank; snowbank hadn’t been there he probably would have killed himself. I never was good on a ladder after that day.
Our conversation turned to the start of the Harvard Ambulance Service.
The Harvard Grange [a civic-minded fraternal organization] was very involved in first aid; they had a big box on the side of the Town Hall with stretchers in it and first-aid gear. Every once in a while they’d get called, and they’d come up there with a station wagon, grab the stuff, go to the accident or whatever, and do their thing.
The Grange finally—it had to be 1970—decided they were going to put an article in the town meeting to start an ambulance. Now, the firemen all got together and we talked about it, and we didn’t want it; we didn’t want anything to do with it. We were afraid it was going to take too much time away from us, we’d be leaving our jobs, and a whole bunch of reasons, but no, we weren’t going to get involved.
Fighting like mother and son
So the day came for the town meeting. I got up and spoke on the floor against the ambulance. It was like fighting mother and son. I was sitting in the bleachers, too; I remember that. So I had my spiel and of course the town was overwhelmingly excited about this thought. I think Dick Cronin was the moderator, and we finally had the vote, and the vote was whatever it was to one! And I was cranky as hell because none of the guys who were in the Fire Department even voted no that day. I don’t know whether they voted, but they didn’t vote no! And so, Dick Cronin says, “Peter, should we make this a unanimous vote?”
I said, “No!” And the vote went with the one no. And that was the start.
The next week, one of the selectmen called me and said, “Peter, you didn’t do very well on that discussion at the town meeting; would you be willing to serve on the committee to start an ambulance?”
I said, “Well, I’ll have to speak to the fire chief [Jack Burdick], because he’s dead against this and if I’m going be involved, he has to say it’s OK.” He said it was OK, so I joined the committee.
We spent a year getting it organized and figuring out how to do this. It was really pretty simple once John Reardon got involved, because he had run a private ambulance in Lancaster. In those days, all you had to have was advanced first aid, so we got people interested in joining—some of them are still in town—and we started training. Then we went and bought a used Cadillac ambulance, those old hearse-looking things, and we stored it underneath the gym at the high school.
The first director
It took a year, but we got it ready to go, and then we needed someone to run the ambulance. They said, “Well, Peter, why don’t you run the ambulance?” No, no! I said I had to speak to the chief, and he said yeah, I could. So I was the first director of the Harvard Ambulance.
And did you come around to liking it?
I don’t know if the word “like” is right. It was different than firefighting—a lot different than firefighting. I remember who our first patient was; I still know who she is. She’s not with us anymore, but she had a stroke on our very first legitimate call. The problem with that was, there were several occasions where it was tough because we knew the people real well. And they weren’t all good calls. It was tough, but it was good; it was a good group of people, and they were very involved.
Tyler Alderson, a 2008 graduate of Bromfield, grew up in Harvard. Everyone has a story. If you or someone you know wants to share one with our readers, email voxharvard@gmail.com.
