St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS — Whether firefighters should have been inside the burning ruins of a building at Christian Brothers College was a matter of controversy. The coroner would call it “an act of folly.”
But Robert Griffin, the sole survivor of Truck Co. 19, saw the sacrifice of six men 100 years ago as a risk of the job.
The Oct. 6, 1916, Post-Dispatch story recounted Griffin’s statement to a coroner’s inquiry: “This, he said, was not done on any orders that he heard, but as a matter of duty.”
It was the same sense of duty that led generations of his descendants into service with fire, police and sheriff’s departments in St. Louis and elsewhere.
On Wednesday, the 100th anniversary of the blaze that killed the six firefighters and four others, Griffin’s descendants will gather at 2 p.m. at Firehouse 29, at Forest Park Avenue and South Vandeventer Avenue, with a commemorative plaque.
Griffin’s grandson, Robert Griffin III, 72, and his sons, Robert Griffin, 48, of New City, N.Y., and Sean Griffin, 47, Andrew Griffin, 46, and Kevin Griffin, 34, all of St. Louis, will attend. Another great-grandson, Patrick Griffin, 40, who lives in Michigan, won’t be there.
The station is the closest to the one that is now a distant memory at Forest Park Avenue and South Newstead Avenue, where Robert Griffin’s crew was based.
He died before Robert Griffin III was born, so the family connection lived on in stories that Robert Griffin II and his siblings had shared.
“The ones that lose their lives both in the fire department and police department are very soon forgotten except by the people in that profession,” said Robert Griffin III, who retired from the St. Louis police 20 years ago. “So here we are, 100 years ago, six men died, and they’re going to still be remembered.”
The names of the fallen — Harry Budde, William Kuhnert, August Sturmfels, Michael Waters, John Parshall and George Young — are listed above an inscription: “This plaque is presented on behalf of Robert Griffin Sr., their brother who survived.”
It is presented by officers and members of the New City Fire Engine Co. 1, the volunteer fire department of which Robert Griffin IV is president. He works full time as a stage hand on Broadway.
“There aren’t any voluntary police departments,” he said, explaining that his father and two of his brothers are police officers, making him a natural rival as a firefighter.
Beyond consulting newspapers and family stories, Robert Griffin IV also met with CBC historians Jim and Joan Dohle, of Fairview Heights, to prepare for the ceremony. They put together a display case for current CBC students to see — complete with photos and a crucifix that survived the flames.
The fire at the college, at Kingshighway and Easton Avenue, now called Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, began about 7:30 a.m. and raged for about two hours. The building sat atop one of the highest points in the city, and the smoke could be seen for miles, drawing a crowd.
Thirty Christian brothers escaped unharmed, but two invalid brothers in the infirmary perished, along with their nurse and a night watchman.
Family commemorates 100th anniversary of St. Louis blaze that claimed patriarch’s fire company https://t.co/ipKF5XtFJp
— STLtoday (@stltoday) October 5, 2016
Eventually, the blaze was sufficiently under control that the fire chief left to change his waterlogged clothes. He got a call at home with news of one of his department’s worst losses of life.
Firefighters were working to extinguish smoldering rubble inside the building when a wall collapsed on them.
Griffin told the St. Louis Star and Times that he had been in a doorway and jumped back just as a wall fell, sending his comrades into a fatal three-story fall and burying them under debris.
“Bricks struck me and dust covered me,” he said. “But I was safe.”
Later, Robert Griffin had the solemn task of driving his company’s firetruck, alone, back to its station.
The Star and Times wrote: “Firemen from other companies gathered about him as he left the scene of the fire at 5:30 o’clock, and then they turned to each other and said: ‘Six came from the engine house this morning, and look — there goes Bobby Griffin, taking the truck back alone.’?” One of the dead was from a different fire company.
Ultimately, the jury at the coroner’s inquest exonerated the chief of any wrongdoing.
Griffin stayed with the fire department until Dec. 31, 1942, when he was 55. He died of cancer the day after he retired.
His family knows he was deeply concerned about the difficult path for the CBC fire’s widows and their children. He had kept in touch with them, but through the generations, they drifted apart.
Maybe, his loved ones hope, their families will hear about the ceremony and join them in the duty of remembrance.
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