Two living legends of the Derby emergency rescue services achieved immortality Wednesday.
The Rev. Thomas E. Berberich and Edward J. Cotter, Jr. were inducted into the Connecticut Firefighters Hall of Fame during a ceremony at the Aqua Turf Club in Plantsville.
Both men helped define the city’s emergency services, post World War II. It’s a time that is long gone — but certainly not forgotten, judging by the rows of tables at the induction ceremony filled with Derby residents.
The men came from the era when Derby’s fire companies didn’t always get along, according to stories being traded during the pre-ceremony cocktail hour Wednesday.
In those days, Storm Engine was Irish. Paugassett Hook & Ladder was Polish. Hotchkiss Hose was usually Italian.
Cotter was appointed fire chief after returning home from the war because he had served in a fire brigade. The appointment of an Irishman didn’t go over well.
A leader in the Paugies wasn’t happy with Cotter — and let him know while responding to call.
Legend has it they settled the matter with fisticuffs on the Derby Green — with a city police officer acting as referee.
Stories of Father Berberich’s time in Derby didn’t involve battles, but were just as colorful.
Berberich, once a Catholic priest at St. Mary’s Church who later relocated to a church in Kent, was known to run down Elizabeth Street to the Storm’s headquarters, often the first at the station.
“I kept my boots at the end of my bed. I’d put them on with my eyes shut,” Berberich said. “I’d put my coat on, but I always made sure to put this on,” the priest said, pointing to his white collar. “A lot of time on the ambulance, the people would look up and see me and say, ‘Oh geez, I must be dying!”
He and Cotter were quite a pair — a lanky priest of well-over six feet, with Cotter, who was famous for busting out his camera at a fire in order to snap shots for the front page of The Evening Sentinel, where he worked as a photojournalist.
“That’s true,” said Derby Fire Commissioner Kelly Curtiss. “He’d have his camera in one hand and a fire extinguisher in the other.”
The duo were role models for generations of Derby residents.
“I’m a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant Episcopalian, but I have so much respect for those guys,” said James Robinson, a lifelong Derby resident who lives on Hawthorne Avenue near Cotter and Cotter’s extended family. “They way they did things. The way we did things. I love those guys.”
Cotter was a founder of the Storm Ambulance and Rescue Corps, along with Richard Kieley and Joe Riordan, who just passed away.
Cotter was known for keeping Derby on the forefront of emergency services. The Storms were the first in New England to use the jaws of life. They were the first to carry defibrillators, according to Storm officials.
“He definitely changed the Valley, when it comes to firefighting,” Curtiss said, whose father, Carroll ‘Chubby’ Curtiss, was good friends with Cotter. They, along with Ed Strang and others, launched Derby Little League. “When it came to volunteerism, collecting donations — any task that was put before Eddie, he did it and did it 100 percent.”
Cotter is the grandfather of David and Thomas Lenart, Jr. Both are firefighters.
David Lenart said guys like Cotter, Kieley and Riordan were mentors to all younger firefighters and ambulance members.
“They were grandfathers to all of us,” Lenart said. “They taught us so much.”
James Cohen, president of the Valley Community Foundation and a Derby native, said Cotter’s contributions to the Valley are vast.
“Ed Cotter is one of the great ones who have made this Valley what it is,” Cohen said.
In honor of Cotter’s induction into the state Firefighter’s Hall of Fame, Cohen announced Wednesday the Valley Community Foundation, the Jane & David Cohen Family Fund, and the Cohen-DeToro Charitable Fund donated $1,000 to the organization of Cotter’s choice.
Cotter chose the Storm Engine Company Ambulance Corps, naturally.
