1961: Firemen’s Wives Answered Calls, Too, in Early ‘30s

03/31/1961

Thirty years ago the El Paso Fire Department was considerably smaller than it is now. The City was less than a third its present size. The Department’s facilities were perhaps crude or even inadequate by present standards. But the firemen of the 1930s were protected by the benevolent wing of the Ladies’ Aid to the City Firemen – a group guaranteed to give smoke eaters first aid and care they needed, since it was composed entirely of firemen’s wives.

Group Not Chartered

The group was never chartered in the legal sense, but some time in 1934 the wives began accompanying their husbands to major El Paso fires – serving them coffee and other refreshments, and dressing injuries.

However, it wasn’t until after the tragic American Furniture Co. fire in February of that year, which took the life of Capt. W.F. Bloxom, that the ladies began taking formal first aid training.

Under the instruction of Fireman C.L. Moore, they soon had a top first aid team in operation which became competent enough to be invited to exhibit at the 1936 Texas Centennial in Fort Worth.

Other Teams Join

It was the only organized women’s group in Texas officially qualified to administer first aid.

They did so well at the centennial that other women’s groups in the state began organizing similar teams, and before long the El Paso ladies were going to various competitions through the state.

However, their primary function never altered – to act as an auxiliary unit to the Fire Department. In that capacity they did invaluable work – as “sisters of mercy” to injured or exhausted firemen on the job, and as social leaders in the department.

Parties and bridge games in the fire house (before the Civil Service put an end to such non-functional frivolity) were organized by the Ladies’ Aid and provided many a happy moment for fire fighters, required to live at the station during their duty time.

The Fire Department is too big now to have a Ladies’ Aid as it was in the ‘30s, and the organization gradually ceased to function about the time of World War II.

Today the Department is a highly efficient small army of 329 and its needs are taken care of by trained doctors and ambulance driver attendants. Firemen’s wives are no longer permitted to be an unofficial wheel of the machinery. As the City grew away from its easygoing was of a former time, so did the Fire Department.

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