Tom Landis Jr.: A born firefighter makes his last call

Among Sue Zeager's earliest memories of her father is watching him dash into a burning building. 

It would have been in the early '60s, when Tom Landis Sr. was a firefighter for the City of York. His father had been a firefighter and foreman of the city's volunteer Vigilant Fire Company. His grandfather had been a firefighter for the same company. He was born to be a firefighter. 

The fire was at the Slick's house, on the corner of Newberry and Park streets, just across the street from the Landis' home, and when firefighters arrived, it was burning pretty well. Zeager watched as her father went into the burning building, dragging a line, trying to preserve property and life. It was his job. 

She remembered crying. She was proud of her father, doing a vital job, one that takes a certain mix of dedication to public service, courage and craziness. Other people flee a burning a building; her father was running into one. She was scared that her father could be hurt – or worse. What would happen if the building collapsed on him? she wondered. 

It was just another day on the job for Tom Landis. It was the life he chose, you could say. Or you could say he was born into it. 

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The first Landis to fight fires in York City was Calvin, Tom's grandfather, who joined the Vigilant Fire Company, probably, around the turn of the 20th century, and there has been a Landis fighting fires in York pretty much ever since.  

Tom Sr. was a volunteer firefighter when the city had just volunteer fire companies. He would have been chief had the city had a paid department. As it was, when the city established its paid fire service in 1936, Tom Sr. was already too old to meet the new department's age limit for new recruits.  

Three of Tom Sr.'s sons – Tom Jr., Gary and Kenneth – were volunteer firefighters. Tom Jr. and Gary became paid firefighters; Kenneth remained on as a volunteer, keeping his day job at York Wallcoverings. 

Tom Jr. joined the fire department in 1957. He had skills. He was respected widely among his fellow firefighters for his knowledge, his dedication and his courage. He was a leader, one who had the nebulous thing that leaders develop. His son, Brian, who followed his father into the fire service, couldn't put his finger on it. Firefighters just respected him, he said. Tom Jr.'s friend, Fred Kottmyer, said a lot of that flowed from his father; he learned to be a leader from his father's example. He was honest to a fault. 

He would have disagreements with his fellow firefighters now and then. When he was chief, John Senft, who would become chief a couple of years after Landis retired, said he butted heads with his mentor often. "Why do you think I'm bald?" he joked. But in the end, Landis held no grudges. It was just a way to get to the best solution to a problem.  

Landis worked his way up the ranks, serving as assistant chief and deputy chief until he was named chief in 1995. He was, by all accounts, a natural born firefighter. A lot of firefighters of his era said he was the best chief they ever served under. He was fair, and he would listen. And he wouldn't ask anyone else to do anything he wouldn't do. 

For instance, there the time firefighters responded to a fire, and when they got there, one of them spotted the flames in the kitchen, a pretty minor kitchen fire. He grabbed a line, went into the house and put it out. An officer dressed him down at a meeting for violating the protocol that forbade firefighters from entering a structure without backup. The firefighter asked whether he was supposed to just stand there and watch the house burn down as he waited for backup. The officer said yes. Tom Jr. went to the front of the room and said none of his firefighters would ever stand by and watch a house burn down. And that was that. 

He was proud of his service. His kids recall that whenever he left for a shift, he left the house wearing his dress blues. He wore the uniform with pride and respect.  

He could be a stickler for the rules. His son ran into a nurse who used to take fire training from Tom Jr. at York Hospital. He was particular about it, and demanding, knowing that a fire in the hospital could have dire consequences. The nurse started to use a word to describe Tom Jr. but stopped. It wasn't a nice word. His son said, "You mean 'fiesty.'" And the nurse replied. "Yeah, OK." 

He was definitely a stickler for punctuality. He always said it was better to be an hour early than a minute late. When he coached softball, if a player didn’t show up half an hour before game time, he was crossed off the lineup card. It didn't matter whether the player was one of the team's big bats or not. 

That was one of his passions, softball. He turned to the game after quitting baseball when he was young. His son tells the story that he was facing a hard-throwing pitcher who drilled him in the back. He said that was enough of baseball and switched to softball. Later, he coached several teams in the various leagues in York, including teams that played their way to national tournaments, placing fifth and sixth two years in a row.  

He was just as strict with the ballplayers as he was with his firefighters. At tournaments, Brian recalled, he took the players' coolers away from them and locked them in is room. He told them they were there to play ball, not drink beer. 

The softball tournaments were family vacations. His daughter Sue recalled that she had been in the hospital in Philadelphia for kidney surgery, and she spent her recovery reclined in the backseat of her father's car, with blankets and pillows, as they drove to a tournament in Ohio. 

He had the twisted sense of humor that a lot of firefighters – and cops, for that matter – share. Sometimes, he fell on the other side of the humor. One of his firefighters, Tim Bair, had a weird sense of humor, and once, Tom Jr. gave Bair grief for running the air conditioner in the firehouse during the day. The AC was to be run only at night, so the firefighters on the shift could sleep. So when the chief was out of the station, Bair got a bag of ice and set it on the eaves of the station so it would drip down onto the sidewalk in the same spot that the air conditioner would leave its telltale moisture. The chief spotted it walking into the station, and was prepared to give Bair seven varieties of heck for it. But he couldn't because Bair hadn't broken the rule. 

There were other stories, like the time he showed up at a fire in his turnout gear, wearing nothing underneath it. It was a practical matter. His clothes were soaked from a previous fire. But the other firefighters couldn't help but pass on the story, and it soon became fire department lore. 

And the pretzels. He liked pretzels, but at some point he was trying to change his diet and watch his sodium intake – or his wife Helen was trying to change his diet and limit his salt consumption. He would make a show of rubbing the salt off a pretzel, but leave some on, obscured by his thumb, so he could have some salt on his snack. 

There was also a dark side to the job. There was the fire at an apartment building on West Market Street. When firefighters worked their way through the building, they found one man who tried to escape the flames by hiding under his bathroom sink. When Tom Jr. tried to pull his body out, his son said, it was like "hamburger."  

Tom Jr. also recalled that during the riots, firefighters responding to calls would be shot at or have rocks and bricks thrown at them. Tom Jr. never understood that. He was trying to help people, protecting life and property.  

When he retired, he couldn't stay away. He worked as a codes inspector for York Township for a dozen years. He returned to city service when asked. And he always visited the firehouses to talk to the firefighters. 

They were his family.  

Tom Jr. made his last call at 4:45 p.m. Sunday. He was 86.  

"To a lot of guys, he was a father figure," Brian said. "It was like a big family. He was the boss, but these guys were his friends. He was always at the firehouse." 

Reach Mike Argento at 717-771-2046 or at mike@ydr.com.