| Jay Loomis - The Journal News/LoHud.com - December 30th, 2007
BEDFORD - Raymond Thompson, who extinguished countless blazes and rescued the injured during 53 years with the Bedford Fire Department, was remembered at a funeral as a tough but compassionate leader who inspired by example.
His fellow firefighters showed their appreciation yesterday in an elaborate ceremony outside St. Patrick's Church. Before the service, a firetruck carrying Thompson's casket arrived at the church accompanied by a police escort. Dozens of firefighters raised their hands in salute as pallbearers carried the casket into the church.
Thompson, 72, died Monday at Northern Westchester Hospital. The former Bedford fire chief, president and commissioner had served the department since 1954. He was also well-known for his work training fire and police personnel throughout the region as emergency medical technicians.
"Ray was a good and decent and giving man, a wonderful husband and father," Rabbi Douglas Krantz, a firefighter and emergency medical technician in Armonk, said in a eulogy. "For me, he was an extraordinary friend. He changed the lives of those he touched. The Fire Department would not be the same Fire Department without Ray. Being an EMT would not be the same without Ray. None of us would be the same without Ray."
Krantz, who had known Thompson for 15 years, said that he also set high standards. "He taught us one of the most important lessons. ... You can be good, but you don't have to be easy," Krantz said.
After the service, Thompson's casket again rode atop the firetruck to the Bedford firehouse as firefighters marched behind. At the firehouse, the procession paused beneath an American flag draped across two tower ladders provided by fire departments from Bedford Hills and Mount Kisco. The horn at the firehouse sounded five times in honor of Thompson, a graduate of Bedford Hills High School who served in the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1960.
"He was a good firefighter and a very good medic, too," Allan Wiltse, former chief of the Bedford Fire Department, said after the service. "He also could be tough. If he said yes, he meant yes. And if he said no, he meant no. He wouldn't take anything in between."
Eric Wiltse, Allan Wiltse's son and a Bedford firefighter in the late 1970s and early 1980s, recalled how Thompson helped maintain the department's morale in tough times.
"I remember when we were younger and saw some pretty horrible accidents," Wiltse said. "Ray would say, 'Sometimes we get to patch them up, and sometimes you have to pick up the pieces.' He was very helpful after the tragic accidents in helping the responders regain their composure so they could perform again."
Burial took place at Middle Patent Cemetery in Banksville, NY.
Photos courtesy of Youth Program Lt. Graham Glauber |
