{"id":85,"date":"2010-03-22T18:21:02","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T18:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/150years\/we-were-turned-into-fire-wardens\/"},"modified":"2019-10-03T14:24:08","modified_gmt":"2019-10-03T18:24:08","slug":"fire-wardens","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/months\/october\/fire-of-1947\/fire-wardens\/","title":{"rendered":"&#039;We were turned into fire wardens&#039;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Elizabeth Thomes Hobbs &#8217;51 wrote&nbsp;a&nbsp;more lyrical remembrance of October 1947 a few years ago, recalling how she drew the dreaded pre-dawn fire watch:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before the fires, had I ever known how much I valued that last hour of sleep before the day&#8217;s duties?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The men of Bates were pressed into service as amateur firefighters, roaring off in ill-equipped trucks to save the state of Maine. We women, in the way of the &#8217;40s, were turned into fire wardens. It was my own duty to patrol my dormitory inside and out for the slightest hint of a spark, an ember that might destroy us and perhaps the whole city of Lewiston. It was, in fact, a real possibility since many of the students did smoke and conditions were off the charts for danger that fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In any case, I drew the hour from 5 to 6 a.m. \u2014 the worst possible if one had an early morning class. I tore myself from my warm bed into the chill October dawn and prowled from room to room, feeling like a cat burglar, or a voyeur, as I watched others in their delicious sleep. Never have I felt such envy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For decades, I have believed that the men came back to campus ennobled and soot-stained. I remember them striding into morning chapel, full of the glory of their hard fight. Especially I remember the one I married and the way my heart lifted at the sight of him, alive and well but such a hero in my view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the one I married informs me that I romanticize, that they were gone only one day, home by nightfall, never having got close to the inferno.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Must I believe him?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elizabeth Thomes Hobbs &#8217;51 wrote&nbsp;a&nbsp;more lyrical remembrance of October 1947 a few&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":83,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"bates_author_byline_override":"","_hide_page_title":false,"_header_override":"","_template_width_override":"","_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"_sidebarChoice":"","footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-85","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/85","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/85\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2244,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/85\/revisions\/2244"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/83"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}