Forgotten hero risked life during Big Burn of ’35
Published: July 9, 2007
On good days, when the fog isn’t so thick, images tantalizingly flicker through Uncle Bill’s 90-year-old brain.
Sometimes the pictures frighten. Flames, smoke thick as molasses, and men crying for help.
Other memories bring a smile. Walking hand-in-hand with Boots. Feeling her warmth. Hearing her sing-song voice. Smelling her perfume.
Too soon the fog returns. Always.
“He has good days and bad days,” says Joseph Papy. “Most of the time he’s not really with it. At dinner tonight, he tried to use his straw as a fork.”
The life Bill Papy can recall only in snippets is no longer his. His closest living relative decides what he wears, when he eats, what he watches on TV.
Thank God for Joseph, who opened his home to his uncle when Bill came dangerously close to accidentally burning down his own home.
Uncle Bill’s other guardian — dementia — isn’t so kind.
It has all but drained Uncle Bill’s recall reservoir. His memories trickle out, leaving those who love him wondering what’s real and what’s counterfeit.
“He would tell me the same story every time. Whatever came to his mind,” says John Keim, who lived across the street from Papy for 25 years.
Papy mainly told war stories.
Even then, he never went into great detail. Bill Papy was always a doer, not a talker.
“I know he received two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star. One had to do with a troop ship. I think it got torpedoed and he was injured,” Joseph said. “He was a staff sergeant in World War II, but he doesn’t talk about it.”
Joseph would love to know every detail of the bravery Bill Papy showed, but his uncle cannot tell him. The fog is too thick, too persistent.
Uncle Bill’s life before he moved from Miami to Tampa about 25 years ago remains a jigsaw puzzle Joseph is trying to piece together.
Joseph thinks Uncle Bill was a TV repairman in Miami. He knows Bill and Boots were married for about 60 years. They didn’t have any children.
Little is known about his childhood.
Joseph knows he will never complete the puzzle. But one important piece recently dropped into place.
“We knew he had saved someone, but we didn’t know the details,” Joseph said.
The details, it turns out, exist on microfilm of a 72-year-old newspaper at the Marion County Public Library.
The story, headlined “CCC BOYS PLAY ROLES OF HEROES IN FOREST FIRE,” tells the story of the heroic deeds of two boys working at the Milldam Civilian Conservation Corps camp in the Ocala National Forest.
According to the article, “Benjamin F. Morris, Fort Lauderdale, and William E. Papy, Tampa, narrowly escaped being burned to death when they volunteered to rescue a comrade, Tom Pitts, of Tampa, who was surrounded by flames and completely cut-off. Morris had his face and arms burned and Papy his face, but neither was seriously injured. … Pitts was surrounded by fire when flames, driven before the wind, leaped over his head. Morris and Papy volunteered to go to Pitts’ aid, and before they could reach him they were cut off by the raging fire.”
The article was uncovered during research for the Daily Sun’s series on the Civilian Conservation Corps. A printout of the article has been sent to Joseph Papy.
When asked if he was surprised that his uncle was a hero when he was 18, Joseph replied, “Absolutely not. He’s the kind of person who would give his own life to save somebody else.”
Papy’s neighbor, Jeanine Keim, had no difficulty envisioning the neighbor who loved growing roses as a young hero. “He’s very giving,” she said.
Fortunately, no lives were lost in the blaze that roared through 20,000 acres of slash pine in March 1935.
“Morris and Papy saved themselves by a desperate dash of about 25 feet through burning woods,” the story continued. “From them it was learned today that they were enveloped by flames as they ran. … Capt. Smith today commended Morris and Papy. ‘Both of these men deserve the highest commendation,’ he said, ‘for their efforts to rescue Pitts.’”
Papy, Morris and Pitts were fighting a fire (in some forestry camps, CCC workers received firefighting training) near Thompson Pond when winds as high as 60 mph turned the area into an inferno. Somehow, Pitts escaped his predicament. The newspaper article doesn’t say how.
The fire swept a path two miles wide and 20 miles long before a miracle occurred.
According to the newspaper article: “Forest Ranger Joe McCullough said today that if the flames had not been checked by the heavy rain which came about 6:30 yesterday afternoon the fire might have destroyed Astor Park, Pittman, Altoona and other Lake County towns which were in its path.”
One can only imagine the devastation the “Big Burn of ’35” would have inflicted if heavy rains hadn’t fallen. Wind-whipped flames, which reached an estimated height of 125 feet, jumped eight 200-foot-wide fire breaks, and leaped over the half-mile-wide Thompson Pond.
Joseph can only guess if Uncle Bill remembers running through a wall of flames to save a friend. Perhaps seeing the copy of a 72-year-old newspaper article about two teenage heroes will spark the old man’s memory. Maybe that will lead to other long-forgotten memories spilling forth.
Joseph can only hope. There are so many perhapses and maybes.
The nephew can only imagine the stories forever locked away in Uncle Bill’s cloudy mind.
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