By Michael Levenson and John R. Ellement
Boston Globe
 Photo Boston Herald View a slideshow of images from the funeral |
QUINCY, Mass. — On his last call, he was blasting the horn on Ladder 26 as the hulking firetruck barreled downhill toward a brick wall. Lieutenant Kevin M. Kelley was doing what he could to save lives.
“He was doing his job - Kevin was Kevin,” District Fire Chief Charles Mitchell said, eulogizing his friend and fellow firefighter at Kelley’s funeral yesterday. “I knew that Kevin had his thumb on that horn, trying to send out whatever warning he could to those down below.”
Minutes after the crash, Mitchell was racing to the scene, confident he could save his friend. “I said, `We’ll get him, we’ll get him, Artie,”’ he recalled telling another firefighter. But when they arrived, Mitchell knew there was nothing they could do.
Yesterday, Mitchell stood at the lectern in Saint Ann Church, looked down at Kelley’s wife, Gloria, and three daughters, Susan, Christine, and Maureen, and spoke directly to them.
“I hate to say it, but we couldn’t help him,” Mitchell said. “And I hate to face you and say that, but it was beyond anything we could do at that moment. Kevin’s last ride on the busiest ladder truck in New England was that afternoon.”
Thousands of firefighters from across Massachusetts and as far away as New York and Maine paid solemn tribute yesterday as they laid to rest the 52-year-old Kelley, a 30-year veteran of the Boston Fire Department who was killed Friday when the firetruck slammed into a high-rise apartment building in Mission Hill. Investigators have not determined the cause of the crash, but are focusing on the possibility that the firetruck’s brakes failed.
Black bunting
The funeral, punctuated by the roll of snare drums and the skirl of bagpipes, seemed to capture the region’s attention. After arriving by the busload on a bitingly cold morning, firefighters lined up five and six deep outside the church. Standing in blue dress uniforms, they saluted with white-gloved hands as a fire engine draped in black bunting carried Kelley’s flag-covered casket to the church.
“When we lose one of our own in the line of duty, the long line of those who mourn goes from firehouse to firehouse, coast to coast,” said the Rev. Daniel J. Mahoney, Fire Department chaplain.
Kelley, he said, was “our latest hero,” from the “long blue line of the bravest of the brave.”
Roxbury fire station left without ladder truck. B1
The funeral drew many who had never met Kelley, but were moved nonetheless.
Joe Conway took the day off work, pulled his 11-year-old son, Daniel, out of school, and drove from Tewksbury. Conway said he wanted his son to learn to honor those who risk their lives every day.
“These are the guys that put it on the line, not some guy bouncing a ball or playing football,” Conway said. “It seems like every day we get less and less guys like this and more and more people who don’t care. I want my son to respect these types of things.”
Kelley was the son of a Boston firefighter. He grew up with three sisters on the first floor of a two-family house in Dorchester, “Fields Corner, Saint Ambrose Parish,” his sister, Peggy Paulli, said during her eulogy. His aunt and grandmother lived on the second floor.
“Kevin, God love him, grew up in a house full of women,” Paulli said. “He spent his adult life in a house full of women. It’s no small wonder he enjoyed going to the firehouse.”
‘Loved the banter’
The mourners chuckled. Many knew personally how much Kelley loved the banter and camaraderie of the firehouse. Kelley poked so much fun of his fellow firefighters that he seemed to have “a master’s degree in busting chops,” said Edward A. Kelly, president of Local 718 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, during his eulogy.
Kelley also “liked to give people names,” Mitchell said with a sly smile. “I believe Shock and Clog are sitting here in the church today. One, I think, is an electrician and one’s a plumber - so you’ll have to figure it out.”
Kelley “enjoyed simple things in life,” his sister said, “floating in the pool with a beer and the newspaper, barbecuing ribs and chicken wings, winning at cribbage.”
“Kevin could be a hard person to get to know,” she added, “but if you were able to do that, then you know Kevin was a man well-worth knowing.”
The possibility that a brake problem doomed Ladder 26 has raised tensions between city officials and the firefighters union, which has accused the city of not doing enough to maintain fire equipment.
Kelly, the union chief, said during his eulogy that Kelley’s death was “preventable” but not in vain. Listening in the pews were Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Governor Deval Patrick, neither of whom spoke publicly.
Otherwise, the circumstances of the crash were not mentioned. Many focused on Kelley’s quirks, what Mitchell called a series of “Kevinisms,”’ including an uncanny ability to arrive first at the firehouse dinner table. But it was Kelley’s diligence on Ladder 26, where he responded to tens of thousands of emergencies, that seemed to earn the most respect.
“We have a term in the Boston Fire Department, and it’s not used for everyone,” Mitchell said. “It’s given by the guys who were in the trenches with you. It says, yeah, he knows what he’s doing, he’ll take care of me, he’ll come for me if I’m trapped. The term is simply, `He’s a good Jake.’ And I’m telling you: He was a good Jake.”
Firefighters helped place the casket of Lieutenant Kevin M. Kelley on a fire engine after services at St. Ann Church. At left, firefighters saluted members of Kevin M. Kelley’s family at his funeral yesterday at St. Ann Church in Quincy. At right, Firefighter Steve Mortlock carried Kelley’s helmet in front of the fire engine that transported Kelley’s casket. Thousands of firefighters lined Hancock Street to honor their fallen colleague.
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