Up Close: James Goss

By Adam Gerchick (Contact)

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Come January, Lucketts resident James Goss will have served the Lucketts Volunteer Fire Department in some capacity for 50 consecutive years.

A lifelong Loudouner, Goss knows a thing or two about his hometown: he has lived within five miles of it all his life. Yet he sees the county changing around him. Having entered the fire department at age 28 the same year it was founded, in 1960; Goss recalls a time when every member was an unpaid volunteer and only the most local residents – those, like him, within five miles of the town – were sought out for service because too many had volunteered. Now, Goss says, the slow, intensely communal way of life the volunteer department represented is giving way to a faster-paced suburban culture.

We recently sat down with Goss at his Lucketts home to discuss his service with the fire department, his recollections of its early days and his observations on the county that he has watched transform.

Q. With regard to the fire department, you have served, I understand, in about every capacity. Is that correct?

A. I have served as president and I've served as secretary and I've served as treasurer for 30 years, maybe plus; I'm not really sure about what year. But it's been 30 consecutive years, I know. I was treasurer a little time before, then I was elected president, and somebody else was treasurer for a year or so, and I served as secretary, and I served on the board of trustees.

Q. Before that, you were an active firefighter?

A. I haven't done any firefighting, going out on calls, for several years now. When it first started, they wanted anyone that could help. Now, I don't know whether it's the county, but when the county got involved we got some paid firemen. We started out with daytime paid firemen, but now we've got 24-hour paid firemen. Well, they don't want to work with you if you don't know everything, so you've got to have so many hours of schooling. You've got to have CPR and you've got to have lots of training, 'cause they don't feel safe going into the house with somebody they don't think is qualified, really.

Photo: Adam Gerchick

James Goss was one of the founding members of the Lucketts Volunteer Fire Company in 1960.

Q. How did you first decide to go into firefighting?

A. Some of the guys got together, and they wanted to organized a fire company. They sent everybody a letter, didn't say what they wanted, saying, come to the old schoolhouse for a meeting at such-and-such a date. They told them what they wanted to do, and there were enough people interested that that's what they decided to do. They formed a charter, and they elected officers, so then we got started doing fundraisers. We did several dinners in the old schoolhouse, to raise some money.

Q. How have you seen the fire department change during your time?

A. Well, [it's] almost the same as day and night, 'cause when we first started the fire company, close to half of the members were farmers, so they were home every day. Now there's not a farmer in the area, really. I mean not a complete farmer. We've got a guy down the road, you come past him on [Route] 15, he does a vegetable stand; he grows some vegetables. But there's not a farmer in the area that, you know, does cropping and everything. Most places, they make hay and stuff like that - corn, wheat and stuff like that.

So it's really changed. We had a maximum that we could have on roll, and most fire companies in the county would have a waiting list to get on. But now, the farm gets sold, people getting three, five, 10 acres; both parents work, and they've got families. They just don't have time to do the training and schooling that they want you to do.

So I've worked on the administrative side and fundraisers. Of course, we don't have much fundraising anymore. We have a fair at Lucketts where we do fire truck rides, and we did real well with those. Early on, we built our building, 30-by-60 high, and I think the only thing we paid for in labor was couple of guys that did the cement floor for us. We had some masons in the fire company, we had some carpenters in the fire company, and we just built it, everybody together.

But you'd have a hard time getting somebody together to build a building like that in the yard there now. Everybody's busy, and all the older people are gone. Like I said, it used to be about half of them were farmers. Then we had another member that runs the service station there and a member that runs a well-drilling business from there and one that runs a septic-tank business from there.

Photo: Adam Gerchick

James Goss has lived in the Lucketts area all his life.

I worked at Safeway myself, so I did evenings and nights. I could run calls, but I wasn't available in the daytime, 'cause I worked for Safeway for almost 31 years before I retired.

Q. With regard to firefighting, I assume a lot has changed. Are you still getting the same types of calls? Are you handling the same kinds of problems?

A. Well, we get a lot of simple calls, a cut finger. I've [answered calls for] women that were ready to have a baby, and I've hauled them to the hospital, in my time, in my car. But now, you know, you get a cut finger, a bee sting, stuff like that.

But a lot of that's due to city people that are coming out to the county. I guess they're used to that, but we get a lot of calls like that. Of course, we get a lot of automobile accidents. We always get calls for those. I don't know, maybe more now than there were then. There's a lot more traffic on the road now than there was back then.

Q. Has the fire department remained in the same building?

A. We've added two bays on it over the years, 30 feet by 60 feet. Both of those are metal buildings, while the [original] was a block building. We didn't have a building when we first organized. We had the charter and everything, but finally when we had some [fundraising] dinners at the schoolhouse, we picked up some money. We borrowed a lot, too. We got a lot from one member, who gave us a fairly good deal. And we bought an old '49 International from someone down toward the city; I don't just remember exactly where now. It stayed down on toward a farmer's house for a while, until we got the building up.

But these guys today, I mean they don't have any idea what it was, these paid guys that come in. 'Course, they got all the book knowledge that you can get, but a lot of them don't know nothing about going out here, fighting a fire out here in the mountains. We have a lot of bad places you need to get in, little narrow roads, back in the mountains, back in the woods, stuff like that.

Q. Was there ever a call, an event that stands out in your mind?

A. I've been on a few, pretty good-sized house fires. We had one out the road here at what used to be a school here. We had to go in – someone said there was somebody missing. Then several of the wrecks, tractor trailers and stuff like that. I've been in a great big house fire; we tried to save everything and clean up when we were done. Then we got a call two weeks later, asking, could we come back, they want you to finish burning it down.

Q. How have you seen Lucketts and this part of Loudoun change in your lifetime? I know it's been dramatic.

A. It has. Everything was a farm right across the road, and now that guy's got five houses back there. The farm right here next door, it's got 25 houses on it. Another farm right below, well, there's two farms below me that go all the way to [Route] 15. But they're subdivided into bigger lots, like 10, 20 acres, and some of them got horses and stuff like that. But no more farming.

Q. Do you still see a sense of community out here?

A. Not like it was, no. Five houses right across the road there, we speak. They throw up their hands when they go by; I throw up my hand. But I only really know the one family that's been here a few times, talked to them a lot and stuff like that. I just recently met one of them just the other day because I had a problem in the garden and found out she worked at the county [Agriculture] Department. So I got to know her a little better than I had, and she's been [living] over there for five years.

Nobody [used to leave] here. This was my parents' home next door, and we moved there in 1943. There's nobody left that was my age in this area.

Q. I know you said you worked at Safeway for 31 years. Did you also farm?

A. I used to raise . . . to have some sows. I used to keep about three or four head of livestock and buy them in the spring, sell part of them and then butcher one. We'd butcher hogs every year.

Q. You have talked a lot about how Loudoun has changed. Was there ever a time, a particular year, when you think the county made the switch from fully rural to more suburban?

A. I don't know. Old farmers died off, and most of the land was sold and started being developed. I guess in the middle '80s, some time around then.

I've seen property sold for less than a $100 an acre, right here in this area. And now I've got an acre back behind here; the county's got it assessed for $40,000. And the half-acre that this house is on is assessed for $100,000.

But money was tight in the '40s and '50s. This lot here beside me has got four acres in it, and I remember one time it sold for $600.

Q. Have you lived elsewhere? Have you ever considered that?

A. No. We got married in 1953. We lived right in Lucketts for two years. In the summer of '54, had the foundation dug out to start building this house. Myself, my father, [my wife's] father, and some other family members worked along. In May of '55, we moved in.

'Course, I was a plain old country boy; we never had running water or a bath in [my parents'] house. We did have it when we moved in here. We had two rooms and a bathroom finished, and we moved in, worked on it. Finished this room, finished that room, and we've been doing things ever since.

Tagged: farms, firefighters, Loudoun County Fire/Rescue, Lucketts, Up Close

Your Thoughts...

Are you happy that the school year is over?