Dispatchers for 50 Years
As the Cromwell, Conn., Fire Department enters into its 51st year, it continues to have as tenants in the apartment on the second floor of the firehouse Nellie and Carl Thorell—the department’s dispatchers for half a century. They saw the department grow from a single pumper and nine alarms to three pumpers, a 6500-gallon tractor-trailer tanker, a brush fire truck, an equipment truck, an ambulance and more than 450 fire and ambulance responses yearly. The department also has had two stations since 1966.
At the department’s 50th anniversary ball, the Thorells, grandparents and in their eighties, received a copy of a Connecticut General Assembly resolution congratulating them on their long service.