official meeting until 1925. Unlike
most other county fire departments,
Shipshewana VFD is owned by the
town and contracts services with the
surrounding townships. Glen Yoder
recounted some of the details of that
first meeting which were recorded in
a January 21, 1981, LaGrange Standard article. Firemen in 1925 included
Chief Russell Prough, Captain Fora Yoder and Charles Allen, Gilbert Malone
and Robert Freeby as hose and nozzle
men. The 50 buckets used to carry
water from cisterns and wells were
manned by Lloyd Lint, Russell Schrock
and Glen E. Yoder. Glen Yoder would
later serve as fire chief from 1940 to
1966.
In that same LaGrange Standard article, Harry V. Yoder, who was
retiring after nearly 40 years on the
fire department, remembered several
incidents. Yoder recalled
riding on the cowl (forward part of a vehicle
that supports the hood
and the windshield) of
a 1938 fire truck using
his raincoat to keep the
coil from shorting out
in the rain on the way
to the fire. There were
also times when his wife,
Grace, would drive to
highway intersections
and stop traffic for the
pg 16 · The Hometown Treasure · Jan. ‘12
1963 Shipshewana VFD Photo submitted by Shipshewana Fire Department
Honeyville Firetruck
Photo submitted by Topeka Historical Society