A firefighter for seven decades

‘He wants to make sure that after he’s gone, people know about Seaford and its history.’”

Ida Zaharopoulos, Seaford Historical Society board member

If the Seaford Volunteer Fire Department were a religion, Fred Roth would be its chief priest and prophet. In a career that included a 30-year stint as fire commissioner, Roth, 89, has served the department for more than 70 years and is still an active firefighter.

Roth, the Herald’s 2018 Person of the Year, is also one of Seaford’s de facto town historians, and when his twin passions overlap, fascinating stories about the town and area emerge.

“When I joined the department [in 1948], a lot of the older members were ex-Prohibition — they were rum runners,” Roth said. Rum runners were local fishermen — baymen, Roth called them — who supplemented their incomes by ferrying illegal alcohol from boats moored just outside the 12-mile U.S. territorial limit.

“The baymen didn’t sell the booze themselves,” Roth explained. Locals would place orders that the baymen would arrange to fill, either from the boats offshore or from local “bay houses” that functioned as depots.

“My father had a boat in the harbor,” Roth said. “This was during the war years.” The family home was in Ridgewood, Queens, but, he said, “I lived on the boat.” He knew one of the baymen, who had two sons. During one summer, the man and his sons regaled Roth with their tales of rum running on the high seas.

Firefighter, reservist, plumber

Because many of the baymen also served in local volunteer fire departments, it was natural for Roth to become interested. After his family moved to Seaford, he joined the department in October 1947. He was just 19.

“I decided I’d try to go to college,” Roth continued. “I told my father . . . so he said, ‘Fred, I’m proud of you. How are you going to pay for it?’” Because he was too young to have served in World War II, he was not yet eligible for benefits under the new GI Bill of Rights.

Roth would eventually qualify for GI benefits after serving for eight years in the U.S. Navy Reserve. But in 1947, the cost of college proved prohibitive, so “I came home, and I said, ‘Pop, get me a [union] book.’” The elder Roth took his son to the local hiring hall for union plumbers and helped him find work. “So that’s how that happened,” Roth said matter-of-factly.

He spent nearly 30 years in the trade before retiring in 1976, according to Barbara Roth, his wife of 65 years, a past president of the Fire Department’s ladies auxiliary.

The two met through Barbara’s brother, Bob, a World War II bomber pilot who was also a firefighter. “My mother asked him if he knew any nice young men,” Barbara recalled, “and he said, ‘Yeah, there’s someone I was thinking of.’” She was completing her training as a nurse at Brooklyn Methodist Hospital when she was introduced to Roth. The two married in 1953, and raised two daughters, Ann Holland, now 64, and Kathryn Saass, 61.

“We’ve had such a good relationship always, always,” Barbara said firmly. “He’s a very kind, considerate, caring and helpful fellow. Very knowledgeable about local history,” she added slyly.

Unofficial historian

Besides his service as fire commissioner and firefighter, Roth has been active at the local library, and has been a reliable supporter of any initiative involving his adopted town’s history. For example, he was a font of information during the hamlet’s 375th birthday celebration in September.

“I just find him so interesting to speak to,” said Judy Bongiovi, the Seaford Historical Society’s president. “He has answers to questions that I never even thought to ask.”

“He’s Seaford personified,” said Carla Powell, the widow of Seaford firefighter William Powell, a close family friend and a director of the Historical Society. “I don’t know how else to explain him — plus the fact that he’s a wonderful human being. If I needed him at 3 in the morning, he would be here.”

Ida Zaharopoulos, the Seaford Public Library’s head of reference and computer services, said that Roth gives history lectures at the library, and allows parts of his personal collection to be displayed along with the library’s Long Island history collection.

“He wants to make sure that after he’s gone, people know about Seaford and its history,” Zaharopoulos said. “Without him, we wouldn’t know as much as we do.”

And he is never at a loss for details about the Fire Department, from its firehouses to its equipment through the years — whether it’s the 1927 pumper the department owned when he first joined or the new hook and ladder it recently purchased.

He has an enormous fund of stories about Nassau County and his town. He began one: “We were on a mutual aid call in Massapequa,” where the Sunrise Promenade shopping mall is now located. At the time, the area was a theme park and zoo owned by big game hunter Frank Buck. “He had elephants,” Roth said, and monkeys that lived on an island in the middle of a pond. “When we were pumping, we laid the hose across the pond. The monkeys on the island looked, and must’ve said, ‘You know, if I walked across the hose, I could get out of here.’” All of them escaped. Local business and homeowners reported sighting monkeys for the next several weeks, Roth recounted, until all of them were recaptured.

An exceptionally fit 89-year-old, Roth said he still rides the rigs “right up to this day.” Most recently, he responded to a person-in-distress call. It was an elderly woman who was feeling stomach pains, he said. He and a Nassau County police officer arrived at the scene. He explained to the woman that the Fire Department ambulance would transport her at no cost. “If you go with a police vehicle,” he added, “you have to pay.”

In his free time, Roth enjoys stamp collecting and woodcarving. He used to make wooden decoys for duck hunters. But his true passion is service. “Fred is the type of person where being a firefighter and serving his community isn’t just something he does, it’s a part of who he is,” County Legislator Steve Rhoads, himself a 25-year veteran of the Wantagh F.D., said last spring at a ceremony honoring Roth’s 70 years of service. “For as long as he’s physically able to do that, there is no doubt in my mind that he will continue to serve.”