Volunteer Firefighters' Memorial Five Years in the Making

Twenty-eight-year-old Eugene Furey rose to the call of duty in the early morning hours of Nov. 20, 1988. The Bayville Volunteer Fire Company member left his Beachwood home on Spruce Street and jumped into his Chevy Blazer.

Furey never made it to the fire.

The  young husband and father was killed when he lost control of his vehicle on a rain-slicked Pinewald Road and crashed into a tree. Shortly after his death, the township named the road next to the Bayville firehouse Eugene Furey Boulevard.

Members of all three fire companies that serve Berkeley Township have been working for five years to find another way to honor Furey and their other fallen brothers.

"We were losing a lot of members that had put in a lot of time with our fire departments," Manitou Park Volunteer Fire Company Treasurer Patrick Piccoli told the Township Council last night.

So five years ago a committee was formed, made up of members from all three fire companies - the Bayville Volunteer Fire Company, the Manitou Park Volunteer Fire Company and the Pinewald Pioneer Volunteer Fire Company.  The group has raised $25,000 to put towards a firefighters' memorial to be located in Veterans Park.

Committee members came to the meeting last night to ask council members for financial help from the township and a promise that they would be allowed to put the memorial in Veterans Park.

"It won't interfere with any parking," Piccoli said. "We hope to put up a sign in the near future so people can see this is coming."

Council Vice-President Carmen J. Amato Jr. suggested the council pass a resolution dedicating a spot in Veterans Park for the memorial. The vote was unanimous.

"I very much appreciate your efforts," Council President Karen Davis told the firefighters. "We are going to see what we can do to help this along."

The committee hopes to break ground on the memorial sometime in August, Piccoli said.

The memorial - designed by Toms River architect Brian Hanlon - features a kneeling fireman on the left, to honor Furey, who was killed in the line of duty - three marble slabs with the names of other deceased township fireman from all three fire companies, flagpoles and benches, Piccoli said.

The money raised so far will pay for the base of the memorial, the three headstones and the inscription of the names, he said.

The statue and the remainder of the memorial will total roughly $45,000, which the committee hopes to raise through donations, raffles and other events, and the sale of engraved pavers that will be placed at the memorial, Piccoli said after the meeting.

Anyone who wants to donate can mail checks made out to the Berkeley Township Firemen's Memorial Fund/BTFM, P.O. Box 266, Bayville, NJ.

The committee also has a website - btfm.org, that will be updated shortly, Piccoli said.