Love and Fire

Bucks County, PA…..Become a Bucks County Volunteer firefighter or Emergency Medical Technician, and you just might find a hot romance.

It happened to Cathy and Dan Albee, who volunteer with Springtown and Haycock fire companies; Jim and Rachel Marshall, who serve at Tullytown Fire Co; Robin and Todd Mathews with Delaware Valley Volunteer Fire Co. in Erwinna and Plumsteadville Volunteer Fire Co.; and John Wells and Andrea Clark, Richlandtown Fire Co. volunteers who will marry in an elegant, firefighter-themed wedding in October.

The couples say their romances are fueled in part by shared values that include the desire to help people when they most need it.

“It definitely helped that we are both service-oriented toward our community,” Todd Mathews said.

Romance isn’t the only kind of love found at the county’s firehouses.

“We can’t guarantee that volunteering will introduce you to your future spouse, but it absolutely will give you a second family,” said Rob Kay, Bucks County Fire Chiefs & Firefighters Association Recruitment Committee co-chair and an Upper Makefield Fire Department trustee. “The brotherhood and sisterhood of fire department volunteers is like nothing else.”

“Volunteering is also one of the most important things you can do for the community you love,” said Jerry Barton, Recruitment Committee co-chair and Parkland Fire Co. Safety Officer.

Cathy and Dan Albee

Cathy was a Springtown Volunteer Fire Co. firefighter when she signed up for an EMT class at Haycock Fire Co. about four years ago. Dan, a Haycock firefighter, was in the same class.

He was not only cute, he was kind, Cathy said. “He was always offering to help whoever needed it, and I started going to him to help me.”

That was fine by Dan, who felt an “instant draw” to “the way she handled herself, the way she talked, and everything else about her. She’s energetic and loveable.”

One night after class he slipped her his phone number, and that was that. They married in May 2013, and are now both volunteer firefighters and EMTs in Haycock, where Dan is vice president and Quick Response Services (QRS) captain, and Springtown, where Cathy is President. Dan, 38, is also a paid EMT with Upper Bucks Regional EMS and Cathy, 48, manages a Rite Aid Pharmacy. Both previously married, they have six children between them, ages 10 to 23.

Cathy enjoys spending time with other people’s kids, too. “Fire Prevention is my baby,” she said. “I love going to schools and teaching kids, and I love it when they come to firehouse and tell us what they learned.”

Being a volunteer is not always easy, Dan said. So why do it? “I don’t want to sound cheesy, but it really is a calling,” he said. “If you were to go around and talk to fire companies throughout Bucks County, they are struggling for volunteers. If you have the ability to do it, and the heart to be able to do it, then do it!”

Andrea Clark and John Wells

Andrea was running the parts counter at Reading Equipment and Distribution’s now-closed Abington office in early 2002, when she got a call from a Milford Township volunteer firefighter who was restoring a 1962 Ford F600 fire truck for the family of New York City Fireman Eric Olsen, who owned the truck until he died in the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Could Reading Equipment possibly donate some chrome handles that would fit the old truck’s compartments?

Touched by the effort, Andrea shared John’s story with her boss, who agreed they should help. Andrea asked John where she could bring the donated handles – 15 of them, worth about $50 each - and he directed her to at Cope’s Garage in Souderton, where he’s still a mechanic.

When another employee pointed out John, Andrea “got this warm and fuzzy feeling,” she said. “The thing that struck me most was this big, burly guy had the heart to take on this kind of project. I fell in love with his heart that day, and I called my mom and told her I met the man I’m going to marry.”

John, who was previously married and has two adult children, was a little slower in coming to this realization. “A little time passed, and I didn’t see her or talk to her. But we needed other stuff for the truck, and I figured she did good on the handles, so I called for hinges.”

Andrea made many trips to the garage, bringing the hinges, chains, rubber stoppers, and chrome headlights.

John began looking forward to seeing her as much as getting the parts. When she came by in June, he invited her to see what’s now known as Engine 911 at the fire company’s annual Harley Raffle Event.

“All the conversations we had ever had prior to that were all about the 911 truck,” John said. “We finally got to sit down, and talk to one another. Everything grew from there.”

The couple, now both 49, moved to Richlandtown, and John soon signed up to volunteer with Richlandtown Volunteer Fire Co.

“I saw the kind of people that were at the station, and I saw him helping people and being positive,” Andrea said. “I wanted to feel that, too.”

Andrea, who now works for Dejana Truck Equipment, said a bad knee kept her from literally fighting fires. “But I’m really good at organizing things and rallying people together, and I found out I’m a pretty talented photographer as well.” She’s one of two Richlandtown photographers who go out on calls. She also helps organize fundraising and community events, and notes hers and most volunteer fire companies always need help with those things.

Engine 911 will be on scene when John and Andrea marry this October.

Jim and Rachel Marshall

About four years ago, Jim, then a volunteer with Levittown Fire Co. No. 1, was visiting his best friend Richard Dixon, assistant chief at Tullytown Fire Company. “We were sitting there at his house, and in walks Rachel,” he remembered.

Rachel had recently moved back to Pennsylvania after living in Tennessee for six years and decided it was time to “follow a dream” and become a volunteer firefighter. She was then going through training with Tullytown.

Jim, who is now 40, had been a volunteer wherever he lived for the past two decades, having decided as a boy who grew up next to a firehouse that he’d join as soon as he could.

Their shared interest led to a friendship, said Rachel, now 41, who was previously married and has two daughters, ages 21 and 10. As they got to know each other better, feelings deepened and within a year, they were a couple.

“The day she graduated from fire school, I was the happiest guy on the face of the earth. I could not have been more proud,” Jim said.

They married this past July – Assistant Chief Dixon was best man - and are now both Tullytown firefighters. Both are also bus drivers for the Pennsbury School District.

Asked what it was like to fight fires with the person you’re married to, the couple said when they are out on a call, their relationship is the same as that of any other two firefighters. “On scene, it’s not husband and wife. It’s the brotherhood and sisterhood of firefighters,” Rachel said. “We all work together.”

It’s amazing to have that kind of friendship and common purpose with so many different kinds of people, Rachel added. “It’s all races, all nationalities, young, old, from all walks of life,” she said.

“You don’t have to be rich to be in the fire service, that’s for sure,” James said. “Your riches are saving somebody’s life, somebody’s property, somebody’s pet.”

Robin and Todd Mathews

Robin, a Navy veteran, was a paid EMT with St. Luke’s University Hospital in Fountain Hill, PA, when she walked into an Ottsville bar in January 2004 with some friends. She didn’t know a thing about the quiet, good-looking guy across the room, but with last call approaching, Robin decided to change that.

“So, are you going to dance with me, or what?” she asked Todd, a volunteer firefighter for about 15 years.

He was a little shy, but not too shy to say yes when a pretty woman asked him to dance. Last call came, and Todd gave Robin a lift to the friends’ house where she was staying. “We sat in the car and talked until 8 a.m.,” he said.

They’ve been together ever since, and it wasn’t long before the same impulses that led Robin to enlist in the Navy and work as an EMT led her to join the Delaware Valley Volunteer Fire Department in Erwinna. The riverfront company spends much of its time in the summer doing river rescues, Robin notes.

Robin’s daughter Amber has followed the boot prints of her mom and step-dad: She’s a Delaware Valley Junior Firefighter enlisted in the Army National Guard, and is in training to become a medic. The couple also has two younger children, Catherine, 9, and Isabella, 8, who also help out with fire company events.

Robin, now 41, and Todd, 39, both work at Delaware Valley College. She works in administration for the MBA and education departments, and he works in Information Technology.

It can be challenging to have a family and volunteer, too, Todd said, and that’s part of the reason every volunteer company needs more members. The more firefighters on the roster, the more comfortable members feel taking out-of-town vacations or when they are otherwise unable to respond, he said.

But volunteer firefighters go to every call they can.

“When someone is out in the river, and they got hurt or is lost, you’re doing something for the community,” Robin said. “When you get fires out, those families don’t lose as much as they could have if the fire department wasn’t there.”

Want to share the love?

All of Bucks County’s volunteer fire departments need fire fighters and other volunteers. Whatever your talents, however much time you have to share, you are needed. Visit www.bucksfire.org to learn more.