Recordpub.com - Rootstown bids farewell to 'The Chief'

By Dave O’Brien

Record-Courier staff writer

ROOTSTOWN — For nearly 60 years, Russel J. Riemenschneider lived the life of a volunteer firefighter for the Rootstown Fire Department: He went on calls, put out fires, saved lives and gave countless hours to the fire station, his second home.

On Friday, his family, friends and colleagues buried “The Chief,” who died Sunday. He was 74.

An honor guard of firefighters in their crisp Class-A uniforms lined up at S.R. 44 and Tallmadge Road, saluting the hearse with white gloved hands as it bore Chief Riemenschneider underneath an arch made by two ladder trucks to his final resting place in the township’s Homeland Cemetery. There, a lone bagpiper sounded the tunes of “Amazing Grace” and “When the Battle’s O’er.”

Riemenschneider began volunteering with the department in 1951 at age 16 after getting special permission to leave classes at Rootstown High School to respond to fire calls. For 17 of his 58 years with the department, he was chief. And not long before his death, he was still cooking meals for Rootstown’s firefighters, family and colleagues said.

For all the work he did for the fire department, the chief “never took a penny,” said his son, Gary Riemenschneider of Rootstown.

“They’d give him a check, he’d sign it and give it back,” he said.

The job meant a lot of late nights, long days and last-minute changes of plans.

“He didn’t go on vacation,” Rootstown fire medic Dave Knarr Sr. said Friday.

“Vacation? Heck no! The tones might go off!” his daughter Debra Riemenschneider, a Rootstown resident, said.

She remembered piling into the family station wagon — always stocked with blankets and a first aid kit for emergencies — and the embarrassment she and her siblings would feel when going out to dinner and “the tones” would sound.

“He’d say ‘Get out of the car,’ and Gary would pout and say ‘This never happens when we have to go to the dentist!’” Debra recalled.

Russ Riemenschneider even got toned out on his wedding day to wife Ellen, who died in 1997.

“The day they were getting married he and the minister went out on a call,” said his daughter Julie Timura, a Paris resident. “Luckily, the wedding had already transpired.”

Gary Riemenschneider said his father worked 40 to 60 hours per week at his job at GenCorp/Omnova “and then would be here” at the fire station. Monday night? Fire company meeting. Tuesday nights, twice a month? Trustee meetings.

“A lot of nights he’d fight a fire starting at midnight, go to work at 6:30 in the morning, work eight hours, then come back after work and dry the hoses,” Gary said.

Russ Riemenschneider believed in doing things honorably and correct, his colleagues recalled, but was also a bit of a jokester.

“You’d get a hose out, get it dried, and Russ would come out: ‘Did you check that hose?’ and have a gasket” spinning on his finger, fire medic Dan Frank said, with Knarr providing the visual. “We had these rubber hip boots, and if you didn’t have them up when you got ready to go on the call, he’d sneak in behind you and fill them up with water. You only forgot once.”

“And you’d better get those trucks washed,” Assistant Fire Chief Jack Duffy said. “Them trucks had to be spotless.”

Chief Riemenschneider was prone to uniform troubles himself. Longtime fire department colleague John Gordon remembered a fire in Ravenna when the chief was soaked by a stray hose line. According to Gordon, Russ Riemenschneider “had to strip down to his skivvies to get on dry clothes.” That’s when the other firefighters noticed those skivvies were pink.

Or the time the chief was riding “tailboard” to a call when the truck hit a mud puddle on Sandy Lake Road and, Knarr said, “the mud flew up and went down in those Wellington boots he had on. He was so mad at the driver.”

A Ford man to the last — “It was not to be denied that he helped to keep the Randolph Ford dealer n business because of the many Fords he personally bought there,” Gordon recalled — the late chief was a handyman, too. The firefighters still joke about last-minute runs to “Russ’ Hardware” for parts.

“Every nut, screw and bolt, he’d run home and get it,” Debra said.

When he stopped being “the chief,” Russ Riemenschneider’s became “the chef.”

“He always said he went from ‘chief’ to ‘chef,’ they just knocked a letter off,” Gary said.

Chief Riemenschneider and Knarr were the master cooks: Chili for the Ohio Department of Transportation workers on cold nights. Chicken that is still talked about to this day. Western ribs. Steak and potatoes.

In later years, Chief Riemenschneider ate at the Circle Restaurant in Deerfield — where he had his own reserved parking space — up to three times a day, Timura said. After his death, his son Dick Riemenschneider of Diamond said, the restaurant’s waitresses showed up to his calling hours and presented the family with one last receipt for a $1.45 worth of coffee.

All of them had signed it, Dick said, his eyes welling with tears.

Family, friends and complete strangers ended up the butt of practical jokes and half-truths: “He claimed he met LeBron James and Jeff Gordon at the Hartville Flea Market,” Timura said.

The chief’s sister, Freda, worked at the Rootstown Giant Eagle, which provided more opportunities for mischief. Russ Riemenschneider told employees he was “head of security,” Gary recalled, to explain why he was there so often. He later managed to get invited to the employee Christmas party and was even named “Employee of the Month” at the store.

Chief Riemenschneider doted on his 11 grandchildren and taught his own children the dangers of drunken driving, taking them to view wrecked cars. Debra said one of her father’s more proud moments was when the township got its first “jaws of life” tool for automobile accidents.

“My dad, he was really behind that. I wouldn’t be surprised if he dipped into his own pocket to finish the payoff on it,” she said.

After the inevitable fatal accidents or fires, his children said Chief Riemenschneider would come home pale and quiet. After one fatal accident, an Ohio Highway Patrol trooper told him “I’ve never unbuckled a dead man.”

“And dad said ‘Yeah, well I have, because us firemen do,’” Gary Riemenschneider said.

Those who shared memories of their former chief, father, friend and community pillar said he was part of what made the fire department and the township what they are today.

“I remember him breaking us in, showing us the ropes. The ‘Rootstown Way.’ I think that’s what made this place what it is today: A steady hand,” fire medic Frank said.

“Dad wasn’t particularly religious, but he found something here,” Gary Riemenschneider said, his voice breaking.