Posing for a picture at Chief Cooney’s retirement party is seated left to right: Thomas Kenneally, Chief Cooney, and then Herkimer Fire Chief Arthur Grooms. Standing left to right are: George Miller, Stephen Talaba, Clarence Smith, Hugo Goering, Berton McGowan, and Abe Swartz.

When the building of the Adirondack Woolen Company collapsed, Little Falls Fire Chief Edward Cooney had been on the job for nearly a half-century. According to grandson Michael Cooney, “this was the incident that made my grandfather want to retire.” In October of 1946, Chief Cooney announced he would retiring at the end of the year. At the age of 74, it would be a well-deserved retirement.

On December 12, 1946, the men he had commanded for so long threw him a retirement party. They were careful not to call it a “farewell,” but a celebration of the chief’s career. The party was held at the Odd Fellows Temple, which was directly across the street from the fire station (a parking lot occupies the spot today).

Every Little Falls firefighter, both career and callman, was able to attend. This was made possible by having a police officer named Floyd Weller (who was a former callman himself) stay at the station to answer the telephone and watch for any alarms that may come in.

Firefighter George Miller presents Chief Cooney with a wallet filled with money on behalf of the Little Falls Fire Department. The leather wallet had “E.J. Cooney, Chief LFFD, 1900-1947” engraved into it in gold. Clarence Smith, who was the member with the most service time, deferred the presentation honor to Miller, who had the least amount of service time.

Joining Chief Cooney at his party was his friend Chief Arthur Grooms of the Herkimer Fire Department, along with Herkimer firefighter Stanley Greshel. Also in attendance was Thomas P. Kenneally, an original callman who had served in the LFFD with Chief Cooney since their days together in the Erina Chemical Engine Company. They were both on the Chemical Engine Company’s football team in 1897, Cooney was a guard while Kenneally was the quarterback.

Fittingly, as the party was breaking up, the fire department was called to an alarm for smoke in a residence on Casler Street.

Life after the Little Falls Fire Department for Chief Cooney

Chief Cooney’s last day on duty was February 28, 1947. He had intended to retire at the end of 1946, but the Police and Fire Board asked him to stay on for a few extra months so they could prepare his successor. After spending most of his adult life in the fire station, Chief Cooney was finally going home.

Sadly he would not get to spend much time in his house at the top of Alexander Street. In May of 1950, the former chief suffered a stroke. He would spend the next year recovering at Van Allen’s Nursing Home, which at the time was located on the southeast corner of Jackson and Gansevoort Streets. When the LFFD finally received its new aerial truck in that same year, they brought it up to the nursing home to give him a demonstration of what the apparatus he had wanted for so long could do.

Chief Cooney would eventually get well enough to make daily visits to the firehouse to see his old friends. As fate would have it, that would end in the autumn of 1951, when another stroke would permanently confine him to his bed at Van Allens. On November 4, 1952, at the age of 80, Chief Edward Cooney passed away in his sleep.

Up next: a new chief and a new era.

A group photo that was taken at Chief Cooney’s retirement party. Seated in the front row from left to right are: Abe Swartz, George Miller, Clarence Smith, Thomas Kenneally, Chief Cooney, Arthur Grooms, Berton McGowan, Hugo Goering, and Stephen Talaba. Standing in the back from left to right are: Clarence “Hindu” Euron, Jim Bullard, Al Silvernail, Jim Miller, John Harwick, Robert Taylor, LeRoy Van Slyke, Claude Miller, Harvey Spencer, Howard Christman, George Harwick, unidentified, Thomas Rathbun, William Malone Jr., William Shibley, Stanley Greshel (Herkimer Fire Department), Samuel Lodge, and Charles Van Slyke.

All photos are from the collection of the Little Falls Historical Society.