LIMESTONE, Ill. (AP) - When Mike Whalen looks out his window, the 44-year-old Limestone fire chief remembers the times he would sprint down Limestone School Road to watch a fleet of fire engines race to a brush fire.
As a kid, he would watch the big red four-wheel drive engine leave the roadway and take off into the field. It was the first fire truck his father gave him a ride in. It was the truck he played on when he visited his grandpa at the fire station.
Now, it’s in his driveway. Some parts are scattered around the 900-square-foot garage he built to restore the 1968 International Harvester Alexis. It’s a father-son project for him and his 15-year-old son, Luke.
Soon, it will dust off the nostalgia and bring back memories to the old-timers who once used that engine for work. Soon, it will be a traveling piece of history that parades through towns.
And it all happened because Whalen went on vacation a year ago to French Lick, Ind., to take pictures of the second fire engine the Limestone Fire Protection District bought in 1968 and sold to a fire department in Plainville, Ind., in 1991.
After Whalen snapped a few photos of the old engine, the Plainville fire chief said his department planned to get rid of it. Whalen offered him $500. Shortly after, he and a friend drove it back to Limestone on a flatbed.
“I think they were a little shocked when I made my offer,” Whalen said with a laugh. “I just couldn’t stand to know that this thing was going to end up in a scrapyard or in someone’s farm field bailing hay. With all its sentimental value, I couldn’t see anything bad happen to it.”
’A unique truck’
Whalen’s grandfather, Edwin, was Limestone’s fire chief when the department purchased the 1968 International Harvester new. His father, Jerry, had been on the department for two years at the time.
“It was our first four-wheel drive unit,” Jerry Whalen recalled. “It was much easier to go through cornfields. We were much more rural during that time than we are now. Now, some of the places we used to fight brush fires are subdivisions.”
The engine didn’t exactly get off to a hot start, however. Jerry and another firefighter took it on its first battle, a brush fire at Lehigh quarry. They successfully extinguished the fire, but fractured the engine’s pump mount while going through a road ditch.
“We notified the manufacturer right away, and they came out the next morning and redid the mount,” Jerry said with a laugh.
The engine’s most infamous battle took place on Dec. 14, 1991, when the Phillips Petroleum Co. pipeline caught on fire. For 87 consecutive hours, the engine pumped a total of 2,610,000 gallons of water.
“We put another pumper in tandem with it so we could shut down the engine, change the oil and put it back online,” Jerry recalled. “It did a very fine job.”
It also caught Mike’s eye as a kid.
“It was the first fire truck I ever took a ride in as a kid,” Mike said. “I remember vividly playing on that front bumper when I visited the station. I always loved this truck.”
Mike loved it enough to keep track of it after the fire protection district sold it to the Plainville Volunteer Fire Department in 1991 after replacing it with a new engine.
“A lot of people used the Harvester for farming,” Mike said. “Then, fire departments started turning them into fire apparatuses. This one is a really unique truck, though. Not a lot of them were made with four-wheel drive when this one came out. As a kid, I enjoyed watching it take off into a field.”
A chance vacation
Mike made a deal with his son, Luke, years ago. He told Luke that if he stayed on the honor roll, they would do a project together.
Mike initially planned on restoring either a 1967 or 1968 Camaro. Then, they went on vacation last year to French Lick, Ind., which isn’t too far from the Plainville Volunteer Fire Department.
Mike stopped by the department to take pictures of the engine for the long-standing members of the Limestone Fire Protection District. He ended up spending $500 and eventually coming home with the old engine.
The father and son started restoring the engine together with all of its original parts, besides some screws.
“This is even better than working on a Camaro because of the sentimental value this engine has,” Mike said. “It’s a great project for us. We have been enjoying ourselves.”
It also has been fulfilling for Luke. The 15-year-old Herscher High School sophomore is a cadet on the Limestone Fire Protection District, making him the fourth generation of Whalen firefighters to serve the area.
Luke may not have been alive when the engine first served Limestone, but the nostalgia runs through his veins. In his bedroom, he has a framed picture the Daily Journal took when the fire protection district got the engine in 1968.
“I always remember looking at pictures of this truck and my grandpa telling me all about it,” Luke said. “It’s just cool to have it here and to have a truck we can both work on. I know at Limestone it’s not just a truck. It has memories.”
Local history attests to that. In April 1992, the fire protection district restored its first engine, a 1952 tanker that was purchased a year after the district started through donations.
That tanker remains at the fire station and is predominately used for ceremonial purposes.
The 1968 International Harvester will take on a similar role once the Whalens restore it. They are about 90 percent of the way done and hope to have it ready for the Bonfield Fourth of July parade.
“Luke and I are doing this to honor my dad and all of the people who have served on the fire protection district over the past 70 years,” Mike said. “We are going to dedicate it to them.
“We are going to take it in any parades, car shows and any functions at the fire station. It will be available for funerals and weddings. It will be a ceremonial vehicle.”
But before that, Mike has a chance to bring life full-circle. He wants to take his father for a ride.
“It’s very satisfying to see them doing this,” Jerry said of his son and grandson. “My dad was the first generation on the department. I was the second. They are the third and fourth generations. That engine has been with us for four generations now. It’s like blood in our family.”
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Source: The (Kankakee) Daily Journal
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Information from: The Daily Journal, http://www.daily-journal.com
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