Phillipsburg, Ohio fire chief joins the Honor Roll of Fallen Firefighters
By Martha Hardcastle
Dayton Daily News
Copyright 2007 Dayton Newspapers, Inc.
PHILLIPSBURG, Ohio — Bob Woolf wouldn’t have approved. He was a modest man.
But once he realized how the series of tributes after his death gave comfort and support to his family, especially his beloved wife of 42 years, DaOnne, he would have forgiven the friends and colleagues who made sure his name will be honored forever.
Woolf, 63, a native of Clay Twp. and a 1958 graduate of Phillipsburg High School, was a firefighter for 38 years, 13 of those as chief.
Woolf was one of five inducted into the Honor Roll of the Fallen Firefighters Foundation in October at their national memorial in Emmitsburg, Md.
He died on duty of an injury sustained while participating in the department’s secret-recipe chicken barbecue, a popular fundraiser.
Woolf was on the tailgate of a truck Aug. 22, 2004, when the cables on the tailgate broke. He fell, striking his head on the road. He died three days later.
It wasn’t a glorious, heroic death in the eyes of some. He wasn’t catching a baby falling from a fiery building. He wasn’t in the midst of a national calamity.
But he had been.
Woolf and son Steve, now 40 and still a member of the Phillipsburg Fire Department, responded to Ground Zero with Box 21 after 9/11 to assist the recovery efforts.