FIRE IN NAPERVILLE!

Our Six O'Clock Fire Whistle    

From the fire station on the north side of Jefferson Street in downtown Naperville, we used to have a fire whistle that went off each night at six o'clock.  The air raid siren would surge louder and louder until it reached its peak, and then slowly taper off.  People standing on the sidewalk had to stop their conversation, waiting for it to be quiet again.  Other people set their watches by it.  Little kids, like me, who didn't wear a watch or know how to tell time, used the fire whistle to know when it was time to go home for supper.

Other times when we heard the fire whistle, we'd feel a sense of alarm. Somewhere, somehow, somebody in our town was in trouble.  We'd stop what we were doing, hoping and silently praying they'd be all right. Meanwhile, volunteer firemen were rushing from their jobs or closing their businesses, to get to the fire station.  Some firemen used a portable strobe light on their dashboard to warn drivers to get out of the way, not that we had much traffic in those days.

One time I watched a firefighter running to jump on the fire truck as it was leaving the station.  "What would happen if they get to the fire station too late?" I worried.  "They'd drive their car to the fire," my Mom reassured me.

One of the Spinner brothers, Bill or John, co-owners of the Naperville Liquor Store on the corner of Jefferson and Main Streets, would grab their official-looking brimmed hat and rush into the middle of the intersection with the palm of their hand outstretched to stop traffic until the fire engine was well on its way.  It'd give me goosebumps as I swelled up with pride that we had such good people in town willing to pitch in.

But volunteer firemen weren't the only ones rushing to the fire station.  My Dad, Otto Keroson, enjoyed a sense of adventure and would jump into his car sitting on our driveway and hurry the six blocks to the train station so he could follow the fire truck to the fire - not that he ever got to see much more than a grass fire in someone's field.

After pagers were invented, we no longer needed a siren to alert our volunteer firemen of a pending fire, and the fire siren was disassembled.  I miss not having the six o'clock evening fire whistle and what it stood for - a sign that all was well in Naperville.

Read more stories in Kathy Keroson's book, "My Hometown - Naperville." The public is invited to the Book Launch Open House on Sunday, April 27, from 1-4 p.m. at the Naper Settlement with book autographs and an art gallery of old family photos and other artifacts.