Madison County man appeals to state Department of State to pay tribute to his father, a firefighter who died in 1950.
Jake Miller, of Hamilton, NY, is appealing to have his father's name added to the state's fallen firefighters memorial in Albany. His father, Poughkeepsie firefighter Tobias Miller, died from a heart attack in 1950 after fighting a fire and returning to his station. The state Department of State, which oversees the memorial, recently decided to exclude from the monument firefighters who died more than five years ago. Jake Miller is holding his father's cap next to a monument in Firefighters Memorial Park in Syracuse. Hamilton, NY - Poughkeepsie firefighter Tobias Miller had just returned to the station after fighting a fire that day in 1950 when he collapsed and died while taking off his boots.
Miller’s name was enshrined last year on a monument in Poughkeepsie that honors local firefighters who died in the line of duty. But his name won’t be etched on the New York State Fallen Firefighters Memorial in Albany. That’s because the selection committee of the state-run memorial recently decided that it would consider no deaths that occurred more than five years before the annual selection vote — even though as late as last year the state had enshrined firefighters who had died in the 1800s.
Miller’s son can’t believe the selection committee, made up of firefighters, saw fit to reject his father.
“The day of my father’s funeral, the whole street had firetrucks, police
Tobias Miller, a Poughkeepsie firefighter who died on the job in 1950.cars, firemen and policemen who came to honor his life,” recalls Jake Miller, who was just 16 at the time and now lives in the Madison County town of Hamilton. “And yet, a few firemen in Albany have decided this honor is not going to be bestowed upon him. I just can’t understand — this is one of their brothers.”
Up until last year, it didn’t matter how long ago the line-of-duty death had occurred for a firefighter’s name to be added to the memorial. In fact, the dozen firefighters added last year included one death from 1877 and another — a Cazenovia firefighter — from 1901.
No longer. The 11-member committee decided this year that firefighters who had died more than five years before the annual selection vote would be excluded.
Edwin Cook Jr., a Syracuse Fire Department lieutenant, was one of the committee members who voted for the five-year rule.
“People were researching their departments and they’d say, ‘Geez, did you know we had someone die in 1912?’” Cook said. “You hate to say no because you don’t want to turn a brother down, but there really wasn’t enough evidence for some of these. I think the committee felt that it was time to set a limit.”
The wall was created by the state in 1999 “to honor the memory and heroism of New York state’s firefighters who died in the line of duty,” according to the selection criteria. The six-page document spells out who is considered a firefighter, what constitutes a death in the line of duty, and what kind of documentation is required.
The memorial has more than 2,300 names, and is overseen by the state Office of Fire Prevention and Control, a branch of the Department of State.
Miller and the Exempt Firemen’s Association of Dutchess County have filed appeals of the committee’s decision. Chris Petsas, president of the Poughkeepsie fireman’s group, said the association also plans to file legal action this week to place on the memorial the names of Tobias Miller and another local fireman, Cornelius Robert Fogg, who died in 1928.
“No firefighter should be knocked out of the box and not be honored by the state just because of a timeline,” Petsas said. “For them to play around with the timeline when it comes to the death of firefighters is just disgraceful.”
Onondaga County has no similar cases, said Richard Webster, president of the Onondaga County Volunteer Firemen’s Association.
“I can understand their feeling,” Webster said. “If we had someone locally we thought should be on there, we’d be fighting for it, too.”
Assemblyman Bill Magee, D-Nelson, said he’s written a letter to the Department of State, and a spokesman for state Sen. David Valesky, D-Oneida, said Valesky has talked to Secretary of State Lorraine Cortes-Vasquez.
For the past 60 years, Jake Miller has kept his father’s firefighter cap and a photo album stuffed with pictures and the contents of his father’s wallet the day he died, including a driver’s license and a crinkled dollar bill.
Tobias Miller, a Poughkeepsie firefighter who died in the line of duty in 1950, is in this group photo of firefighters. Miller is in the bottom row, second from left. In February 2009, he said, a cousin e-mailed Jake Miller to say that the Poughkeepsie firefighters group was erecting a monument to fallen colleagues. Miller dug up a news clipping of his father’s death from the Poughkeepsie library and sent it to the firemen’s association. Even though the monument was nearly complete, Tobias Miller’s name was added at the bottom, and Jake Miller was invited to speak at the ceremony unveiling the memorial in April 2009.
A month later, the Poughkeepsie firemen nominated Tobias Miller for the state memorial. It wasn’t until May 11 of this year that Jake Miller received a letter that said, sorry.
“The committee determined that the circumstances surrounding his death, while certainly tragic in nature, do not meet the selection criteria” of the five-year window, according to the letter from John F. Mueller, deputy state fire administrator and committee chairman.
Cook, the Syracuse firefighter, say it might be time to reconsider the five-year restriction.
“We could go back and change that, but I’m not sure if the committee would be willing to do that,” he said.
Jake Miller says he’s fighting not only for his father’s memory, but for the fallen firefighters whose names have not yet surfaced.
“There is going to be research in the future, and names are going to appear like my dad’s,” Miller said. “Because they came up with this new rule, my dad and Mr. Fogg and any other fireman’s name that appears in the future won’t be on the monument.”
Contact Glenn Coin at gcoin@syracuse.com or 470-3251.