I remember a really cold night on December 31, 1970. There was snow on the ground that had not melted. One of the Victorian houses in Whitsett caught fire. Clay Perrett was one of our older neighbors and it was his house that caught on fire.

            After I heard sirens, I looked out my bedroom window. We didn't have a fire department so It was unusual to hear sirens. There flames were so high they lit up the dark sky. You could see embers flying all around coming from the fire. Gibsonville and Elon Fire Departments came to fight the fire. The day after the house smoldered all day. The house was a total loss.

            Within a few months some of the men in the community met and discussed starting a fire department. Whitsett Fire Department got their charter in July 1971. They borrowed a fire truck from another fire department to use until they could purchase one of their own.

            One day my dad moved my moms car out of the garage and replaced it with the borrowed fire truck. It was an older model fire truck and it had no roof. It was that day that I learned that our house on Coleman Drive was becoming the first fire department in Whitsett. My dad; Richard Brothers, was appointed the first Fire Chief; a title he kept for over 31 years. WIthin a year, I watched my Dad, and the other fire fighters lay the first bricks at what became the Whitsett Fire Department.

            Clay Perrett went on the live at one the local residents homes in the community. Richard Brothers outlived all of the original fire fighters except a few who had left the department. Although my dad is in declining health, he remains a member of the Board of Directors of the Whitsett Fire Department. This is his fifty fifth year of serving on the fire department in one capacity or the other.

            It would take me a day to tell all the things that happened along the way. There isn't enough time. But the worse tragedies that come to mind are the oil spill on Interstate 85/40 in the early 70's and the fire at Eastern Guilford High School in 2006.

            There were a few humorous moments. At one time there was only one daytime volunteer fire fighter; Andy Brown. He left with one of the fire trucks to go on a call on Wheeler Bridge Road. My mother knew that he would need more water to put out the fire so she drove the other fire truck to the fire. She had never driven a large truck like that so she scrapped the gears all the way there. Then there was a time my mother was gone with our car and a fire call came in. My Dad jumped up from his chair and ran. We watched him run down the dirt road and he kept running toward the fire department a half a mile away. Watching this was very comical for us.

            The fire department caused a few disputes between my Dad and I also. He was driving fast to get to a fire and I was a passenger in his truck. I yelled for him to stop and let me out. It didn't matter how far way from home or the fire department we were, I just wanted out of the vehicle. This happened more times that I could count.

            We, as a family were at the fire department all the time. Meetings, fund raisers, and cleaning the trucks were a regular occurence. We had horse shows and brunswick stews for fund raisers. 

            Now that I am older, I have a sense of pride that my Daddy helped start the Whitsett Fire Department and has stayed involved all these years. It all started because of the night the flames roared at the Perrett house on New Years Eve night. We wouldn't have had a fire department if not for those events in 1970. Something good came out of something bad. A great Volunteer Fire Deparment with some of the most dedicated men I have ever seen!

Susan Brothers McKinney