Goodwill Fire Company, Germansville, will celebrate its 100th anniversary with a parade and festivities July 11.

The parade will stage 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Northwestern Lehigh High School parking lot.

Vehicles and marchers will proceed at 2 p.m. from Northwest to Hunters Hill to Central roads ending at the fire station along Memorial Road.

There will be trophies awarded at the end for various marching groups, pumpers, tankers, antique apparatus, marching bands and more.

There will be food and beverages available, and the Rehrig Brothers Band will perform 6:30-9 p.m. A fabulous fireworks display will conclude the evening at 9:30 p.m.

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In a small town like Germansville, and many in the northwestern section of Lehigh County, there has always been a sense of community.

For the most part, neighbors help neighbors.

As the Goodwill Fire Company, Germansville, approaches the celebration of 100 years of service, the Northwestern Press sat with the current chief and three past chiefs whose service to the community spanned 50 years.

After reviewing historical documents, and talking with volunteers, it became evident their sense of family and brotherhood stems from spending numerous hours training and fundraising to support their cause.

A community fire company only works if the community is involved.

Originally, the fire company was built as the Germansville Memorial Hall to honor those in the township who lost their lives in war.

The multipurpose building included a stage, indoor basketball court for area children to use and a shuffleboard area in the downstairs.

The building was a meeting place for community members with many other organizations, such as the Grange and 4-H.

Events such as the bull raffle, ham and egg suppers, New Year's Eve dances and the 2000 Club and ham raffle drew from close to 500 in their heyday. In 2005, Eugene and Delores Handwerk donated land abutting the property owned by the Goodwill Fire Company.

Events brought community members together for years and more room was needed.

So were improvements to infrastructure. This could not have been accomplished without the generous donation by the Handwerks.

As with many volunteer fire departments, the chiefs and firefighters performed a balancing act between fundraisers, firefighting and responding to other emergency calls.

Former Chief Danny Fetherolf discussed working in the kitchen and answering calls.

"One day there were three or four brush fires and the men had to get back to the firehouse to help with a dinner," Fetherolf said.

"[But] everyone got served," Former Chief Larry Leibensperger added.

Doris Koenig, of Central Grange 1650, said she remembered one time when they had just carried food upstairs for a banquet and a fire call took all but one man out on the call.

Mark Smith, another former chief, remembered days when volunteers would bring frying pans from home to help in the kitchen.

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The Trucks

The fire trucks of Germansville have their own bit of history.

With the first, a handdrawn cart still owned by the fire company today, to a 2004 pumper-tanker, one could only imagine what the forefathers of the fire department would think of the fire trucks of today.

From the sleek lines of the company's 1934 International, to the 1952 International purchased for $12,000, the equipment and technology changed, as did the emergencies to which the firefighters respond.

Chief Jay Scheffler said the 1952 International needed to be driven slowly as it had mechanical brakes.

The truck needed to be downshifted to help the brakes slow down the vehicle.

Twenty years later, a 1972 American LaFrance engine from Elmira, N.Y., joined the firefighting team.

The LaFrance was flooded at the factory by Hurricane Agnes.

"The waterline showed," Leibensperger said. "But it cleaned up pretty well."

That engine is now owned by Scheffler.

A 1977 International tanker bought from Kermit Loch, came to Goodwill.

The tanker originally was used by Lehigh Valley Dairies to haul milk.

Retrofitting these tankers was common in the '70s and '80s.

Many of the chiefs remember how slow the tanker was often getting passed by cars when responding up over the Blue Mountain to Schuylkill County.

Six members went to Melrose Park, Chicago, Ill., in 1992 to pick up the 1991 Darley Engine.

Fetherolf and the truck committee negotiated the price and, when construction was complete, they traveled to Chicago and drove the engine back to Germansville.

On the way back, they stopped at the Midway Diner and Leibensperger drove the last leg of the trip.

In 2004, the company received a $225,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and purchased a 2004 Central States pumper tanker.

This vehicle replaced the 1977 tanker and the 1972 engine.

The 1977 tanker is now used by the Heidelberg Township road crew for road maintenance.

"The guys really take pride in the vehicles they own and try to be as fiscally responsible as possible when purchasing a new piece of apparatus," Deputy Chief Randy Metzger said. "Our squad/traffic control unit, and three of our brush trucks were designed or constructed in-house by the firefighters, most notably our 1977 2.5-ton "deuce" and its replacement a 1990 5-ton military surplus vehicle.

"For the 100th anniversary celebration, we have managed to find the owners of many of these past fire trucks and have asked them to bring them back for the celebration, most noteably the 1934 International, which many of our current firefighters have never seen."

Leibensperger had the longest tenure of anyone in the company with 51 years, 18 of them as chief.

During that time, barn fires were most notable.

For one fire, his father picked him up from 4-H and they went straight to the fire.

Leibensberger is a third generation firefighter.

There have been some memorable fires over the past 100 years, including Mohr Orchards, the Butternut Hotel, large forest fires on the Blue Mountain, and many others.

Smith said while he was chief, firefighters were called to a fatal house fire, which turned out to be a homicide with the fire used to cover up the murder.

Another he remembers fondly is one in the mid '90s with high humidity when they were called out to a garage fire with fire in the ceiling.

Due to the rural community and a lack of manpower during the day, firefighters did an exceptional job saving the home containing the fire to the garage."

Fetherolf recalled when he was chief there was once three fires in one week.

The company returned from one at Rex's barn in time to answer another call.

He was chief the first time they answered 100 calls in a year.

Some of his most memorable would have been the long string of arson barn fires in 1997, some technical rescues at the Bake Oven Knob/Bear Rocks area, and many large forest fires.

Smith recalled one day it took three hours to free a driver from a car.

They were considering amputating his legs to free him.

Rescue is now a large part of what fire companies do.

"There is a lot of training required in firefighting, forestry, ropes and water rescue," Scheffler said.

In the beginning people just came in and fought fires, Harold Hoppes of the Central Grange 1650 said.

"If the fire truck passed your place, you just went along to help," Hoppes added.

Hoppes held many positions within the fire company but never as a firefighter.

He recalled he was in the barber shop one day and the phone rang.

At that time, there were fire phones at many homes.

By hitting 4126, the phones rang in all the connected homes and a siren, which still remains, was set off on top of the hotel.

"It's tough in a rural area because you have to be somewhat of a jack-of-all-trades," Metzger said. "People rely on you at their worst and they expect you to have the answer.

"That draws in a lot of firefighters and being able to solve problems for these people is one of the true perks of the job."