Vincent G. Orme

Introduction

VINCENT G. ORME was born in Camden, New Jersey on June 9, 1929 to Clara and Vincent Orme. By April of 1930 the Orme family, which included siblings Lena and Anthony Orme Jr., had moved to 1826 South 4th Street in Camden, New Jersey. The elder Orme worked as a shoemaker to support his family. By 1943 the family had moved to 231 Berkley Street.

Vincent Orme enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on March 12, 1947 and served for three years. He returned to Camden, and worked for one year at the Howland Croft & Son textile mill on Broadway, then found employment as a salesman with the local International Harvester franchise, where he worked for four years.

On January 13, 1951 Vincent Orme’s older brother Anthony Orme was appointed to the Camden Fire Department. Vincent Orme joined him, beginning his service on May 16, 1956. He was then living at 224 North 37th Street in East Camden.

In September of 1967 Vincent Orme was promoted to captain, and served with Engine Company 7 on Kaighn Avenue. On March 25, 1985 was appointed Assistant Chief Fire Marshall, a post he served in for the rest of his career. After having served the City of Camden for 34 years, Vincent G. Orme retired on June 1, 1990.

Last a resident of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Vincent Orme passed away at the age of 85 on June 23, 2014. He was survived by his sons, Vincent M. Orme and Jeffrey Guadagno, and his companion, Francina Still.

The Miracle of Easter

March 30, 1970

Manpower of two Engine Companies get big line into service and give fire a dash from the street before attempting interior attack at Fourth Alarm, North 6th and Penn Streets, March 30, 1970 — Manpower of two Engine Companies get big line into service and give fire “a dash” from the street before attempting interior attack at Fourth Alarm, North 6th & Penn Streets, March 30, 1970.

Fourth Alarm for fire and collapse at electronics supply house, North 6th and Penn Streets, center city, March 1970 — exterior operations at height of fire — Fourth Alarm for fire and collapse at electronics supply house, North 6th & Penn Streets, center city in March 1970. Scene depicts exterior operations at height of fire as heavy smoke vents from building. Roof and top floor of building collapsed trapping members of Engine Company 1.

Fourth Alarm for fire and collapse at electronics supply house, North 6th and Penn Streets — heavy smoke venting from building — Fourth Alarm for fire and collapse at electronics supply house, North 6th & Penn Streets, center city in March 1970. Scene depicts exterior operations at height of fire as heavy smoke vents from building. Roof and top floor of building collapsed trapping members of Engine Company 1.

Members access basement and prepare to advance handline through sidewalk cellar doors during overhaul at Fourth Alarm, North 6th and Penn Streets, 3-30-1970 — Members access basement and prepare to advance handline through sidewalk cellar doors during overhaul at Fourth Alarm, North 6th & Penn Streets — 3-30-1970.

All hands anxiously await their turn on the inside during rescue operations following collapse of fire building on Easter Monday, March 1970. At time of collapse Engine 1 was operating handline on second floor while overhauling. Without warning roof and second floor pancaked into first floor and basement. Captain Phillip Maycott and Fire Fighters Alston, dehart, Maroldo and Winters were buried amid tons of rubble. All members managed to extricate themselves except for “the Officer and the Probie.”

Probationary Fire Fighter John Maroldo removed from ruins of collapse, shouting to find his captain — Removed from ruins of collapse is Probationary Fire Fighter John Maroldo. Maroldo narrowly escaping certain death after being entombed for over an hour is seen shouting at members to “find my captain.” Captain Vincent Orme, Engine Company 7, reassures Maroldo that continuing rescue operations are underway.

Captain Maycott as last member removed from collapse is carried to waiting ambulance. Units at scene breached walls and performed tunneling and shoring operations to reach trapped members. Both Maycott and Maroldo miraculously escaped with just bruises and sprains. Remaining members of Engine 1 were treated for cuts and scrapes following near catastrophe on March 30, 1970.

Captain Maycott carried to ambulance after rescue from collapse at North 6th and Penn Streets — Captain Maycott as last member removed from collapse is carried to waiting ambulance. Units at scene breached walls and performed tunneling and shoring operations to reach trapped members. Both Maycott and Maroldo miraculously escaped with just bruises and sprains. Remaining members of Engine 1 were treated for cuts and scrapes following near catastrophe on March 30, 1970.

Photos

Vincent Orme fire card — Vincent G. Orme – Camden Fire Department

Vincent G. Orme (1929 - 2014)

Camden Courier-Post — June 27, 2014

AGE: 85 Years • Cherry Hill

Passed away on June 23, 2014. Formerly of Camden. Devoted father of Vincent M. Orme and Jeffrey Guadagno. Loving grandfather of 3. Beloved friend and companion of Francina Still.

Prior to retirement, Mr. Orme was employed with the City of Camden as the Assistant Chief Fire Marshall. He was also a United States Marine Veteran.

Funeral Services are private and at the convenience of the family, under the direction of the Falco/Caruso & Leonard Funeral Homes. Info, condolences & guestbook at www.carusocare.com

The Grim Shadow of Death Stalks Firemen’s Family

Camden Courier-Post — June 13, 1975

By Martin DiCarlo

FRANK IANNELLI came to this country in 1904 from the sleepy little mountain village of San Bartolomeo, Italy. He settled first in Boston with friends and went straight to work as a helper at construction sites. He was 13 years old. A few years later he moved to Camden, where he worked at a number of jobs before joining the Army to fight in World War I.

He came back to Camden after the war and in 1921 he had himself a very good year, the kind of year that marks a turning point in a man’s life.

First he landed a job as a hoseman with the Camden Fire Department, a job that would keep him working during the Depression. Then he met Rosina Carlone, who, as fate would have it, was also a native of San Bartolomeo. Rose, as she was called, had only recently come to America and was living in Newark. When word reached Frank through the grapevine that a young girl from his village was living only a few hours away, he made arrangements to meet her so that he might learn the latest news about his family and friends back in the old country. Hoping to make a good impression, he made it a point to call on Rose in his fireman’s uniform.

The visit went very well. So well, in fact, that six months later Frank Iannelli and Rosina Carlone were married. They moved into a rowhouse at 3rd and Berkley streets in Camden, and in short order two sons, Leonard and Carmen, were born. Years later, in 1937, a third son, Frankie, arrived.

Like most Italian-American families, the Iannellis were very close. Rose would often take the boys down to the firehouse to see their father. Then, on an April night in 1942, tragedy struck. After fighting a dump fire in the city, Frank Iannelli collapsed in the firehouse at 27th and Federal streets and died of a heart attack. It happened as he was climbing the firehouse stairs. He was 51 years old.

TRAGEDY spares no family. Sooner or later all of us will have to pick up a telephone in the middle of the night. The death of Frank Iannelli hit Rose and the boys hard, but the family closed ranks around Leonard, who followed in his father’s footsteps by joining the fire department in 1948. Five years later Carmen followed suit.

It was not until a bitterly cold night in January 1964, a night on which the temperature dropped to one degree above zero, that the Iannelli family began to think that fate had singled them out for more than their share of heartache.

On that night, Leonard, 41 years old and by then a captain in the department, toppled over in the ice and snow at a two-alarm fire in a men’s clothing store at Broadway and Chestnut Street. He died before he reached the hospital, of heart failure brought on by smoke inhalation.

THE IRONY of Leonard’s death left the family shattered and bewildered. The pain was keener because neither Leonard nor his father had a history of heart trouble. They had been strong vibrant men, full of life. In neither case was there a warning, a hint of danger. Their deaths were the hardest kind to accept—totally unexpected, as arbitrary, it seemed, as the death of someone struck by lightning.

If there was a consolation for the Iannellis, it was only the thought that certainly now no greater tragedy could befall them. The worst had happened; only better days could lie ahead.

Carmen was now the head of the family and the only Iannelli left in the Camden Fire Department since Frankie, unlike his father and brothers, had not been caught up by the mystique of the fireman’s life and had broken with tradition by going to work for RCA.

Carmen was a quiet, sensitive man who preferred to spend his idle hours around the firehouse working crossword puzzles and solving riddles rather than taking part in the practical jokes and locker room humor for which firemen are notorious. He was broad-shouldered and balding, with a homely but honest face, and as he approached 50 the resemblance to his father became almost uncanny.

To his wife, Jean, and the rest of the family, he did not appear to brood about what had happened to his father and brother, nor did he seem to worry about falling victim to a similar fate. But there were times at the firehouse at 27th and Federal, where he had been stationed since shortly after his marriage in 1960, when it was clearly very much on his mind.

One day, climbing the firehouse stairs with Vince Orme, who is now the city fire marshal, Carmen pointed to the second floor landing and said: “That’s where it happened. That’s where my father died. That’s where I’ll probably die too.”

He was wrong. He was not destined to die on the landing where his father died. He was destined to die about 50 feet away, out on the sidewalk, unravelling five-inch hose after a fire in the storage yard of a wastepaper warehouse on Pine Street.

He was destined to die last Thursday, not only at the same firehouse in which his father died, but at just about the same time of day—two o’clock in the morning—and at just about the same age—50.

THREE MEN, a father and two sons, all firemen, all killed on the job by heart attacks. The irony is almost too awful for the mind to fully grasp and comprehend. In the 100-year history of the Camden Fire Department, it has never happened before. It will probably never happen again.

With Carmen’s death, the grief of the surviving members of the Iannelli family can no longer be measured. It can only be sensed.

It can be heard in the nervous, high-pitched voice of Frankie Iannelli, who is now 38 and who stated very matter-of-factly the other day, sitting in a car outside the RCA buildings in Camden, that he does not expect to live much past 50 either.

And it can be seen in the eyes of the widows. Terribly sad eyes, like those of children who, having been punished unfairly, cringe in expectation of still more punishment. In the eyes of Jean Iannelli and Leonard’s widow, Olga, but most of all in the old careworn eyes of Rose Iannelli, who has lost the most, and who alone has seen the haunting tragedies of the Iannelli family unfold from their very beginnings, from the seeds sown long ago in the mountains of San Bartolomeo.

Important Note!