| Moxie eulogy co-authored with Loudonville Times editor Jim Brewer |
By JIM BREWER & IRV OSLIN
T-G Staff Writers
LOUDONVILLE — From a very early age, Moxie was lured by the siren song of pumpers and ladder trucks.
Moxie, less commonly known as John C. Augustine, was a career firefighter in Ashland and Loudonville. He died at his Loudonville home Tuesday (March 20, 2007) after a three-year illness. He was 60 years old.
Those who knew him said Augustine lived up to his nickname, which his father, the late John E. Augustine, had given him. They remember him as a colorful character prone to using colorful language.
Retired Ashland firefighter Bob Workman worked with Augustine for many years. He recalled stories of Augustine as a young child riding his peddle-powered fire truck to the Loudonville fire station around the corner from his house.
“He used to ride his peddle car up and down the streets of Loudonville and people would ask him, ‘Where’s the fire, Moxie?’ ” Workman said. “He’d tell them, ‘There’s no damn fire, this is a practice run.’ ”
Workman’s father-in-law, Larry Messner, owned a barber shop in the village.
“He’d say that Moxie was the orneriest kid he ever saw,” Workman said.
Augustine probably would have considered that a compliment. Throughout his life, he had no qualms about telling people how he felt about them or any topic under the sun.
“The thing about Moxie is you always knew where you stood,” Workman said.
Workman was there in 1979 when Augustine painfully acknowledged that his 12-year firefighting career had come to an end. Augustine had experienced chest pains at an earlier fire on Cottage Street. It happened again, this time while he was fighting a fire on Wick Avenue.
“He came out, sat on the running board and said, ‘Bobby, I can’t do it anymore,’ ” Workman recalled. “That was the last of it.”
Retired Ashland firefighter Telah Smith met Augustine in 1976.
“He was a very good firefighter and he was a very good EMT instructor,” Smith said. “The guys really looked up to him.”
Smith also considered him a role model.
“I learned a lot from him in the way I act because he was really forward,” Smith said. “You either hated him or you loved him.”
Augustine returned to the Ashland Fire Department in 1985 as a dispatcher, where he worked until 2000 when the county and city dispatch operations were combined.
As a dispatcher, he was known for his professionalism tempered with an occasional humorous aside.
Capt. Chris King, Ashland Fire Department HAZMAT team leader, enjoyed Augustine’s approach.
“He had a unique style of dispatching,” King said. “He was unconventional but always seemed to get the job done. A lot of his skill as a dispatcher came from the fact that he had worked as a firefighter.”
Ron Baker was Ashland fire chief from 1981 to 1994. He remembered Augustine as a dedicated firefighter and exceptional dispatcher.
“He did dispatch like it’s done in a big department,” Baker said. “And every once in awhile, he would stick in a little quip.”
Baker, who does volunteer work at Samaritan Hospital, visited with Augustine the last time he was in the hospital.
“I talked with him for a few minutes and he told me he was really sick, but that he was going to get better,” Baker said. “He really had a good positive attitude about him. He was just a genuine individual.”
Augustine also served as the director of the county disaster service from 1976-1984 and was a volunteer firefighter and assistant chief with the Loudonville Fire Department.
He worked with Loudonville Fire Chief Jim Danner for more than four decades. Danner joined the department in 1967. Augustine came on board a few years later.
“I know being a fireman was something he wanted to do from early childhood,” Danner said. “He was very knowledgeable about the firefighting business, was an excellent trainer, and enjoyed being around the fire station scene, gabbing with the guys.”
Mayor Stewart Zody’s memories of Augustine go back to the late 1950s and early 1960s when both were working their way to the rank of Eagle Scout in Loudonville Boy Scout Troop 537.
“We were in the Scouts together for six or seven years, with me earning my Eagle in 1959 and Moxie in 1960, working on the award at the same time,” Zody said. “Back then, and forever afterward, I remember him for two things. He was passionate about the fire department, doing things, even at the junior high and high school level, for fire chiefs Chuck Getz and Burley Saunier; and always being willing to do things for the community and for individuals in the community without ever having to take credit for it. He never sought out glory for anything he did. He was still that way the last time I talked with him last week. We have lost one of our finest, most caring citizens.”
Many folks in the Loudonville area became reacquainted with Augustine the past few years when he joined the broadcast team at WZLP radio, the Loudonville-based low-power radio station operated by Zion Lutheran Church.
“When we were in the planning stages of our station, I called Moxie,” station manager Margie Danner remembered.
Because of his experiences in emergency service and his reputation for being one of Loudonville’s “citizens of flavor,” she believed he would be a good fit for the station. He turned her down at first. But, a year later Augustine relented. He told her that, instead of giving something up for lent this year, he would like to do some community service and “try that radio thing.”
“We got him to help doing broadcasts, and found it a match made in Heaven,” Danner said. “He loved playing music, telling a story or two, and was full of knowledge on everything.
“Of course, I also grew up with him, so we were very tight, and he has always been a good friend and adviser who appreciated the simpler pleasures of life. At WZLP, he was one of our pioneers, and for that, he will always live on for us in my heart.”
The Rev. Terry Ruther of Zion Lutheran remembered Augustine as his co-anchor on certain days.
“He was his own person, always willing to express his opinions, and also a person who loved the town of Loudonville immensely,” Ruther said.
Augustine also was proud of his Irish heritage.
“With our special show last Saturday, he saw to it that we played Irish music all through the St. Patrick’s holiday, something that was very much like him,” Ruther said.
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