Editor’s Note: Below the obituary, please see an article the EAN first published in 2017 commemorating 50 years of service by Mr. Sam Turner.
WETUMPKA – Mr. Samuel Clifton Turner, a lifelong resident of Wetumpka, Alabama, passed away peacefully on Wednesday, September 21, 2022.
The family will receive friends, Friday, September 23, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. at Gassett Funeral Home. Funeral service will be held Saturday, September 24, 2022 at 3:00 p.m. at First Baptist Church of Wetumpka with Rev. Clint Landry officiating. Burial will be at Wetumpka City Cemetery with Gassett Funeral Home of Wetumpka directing.
Sam was born August 30, 1933, in Wetumpka, Alabama, to Clifton E. Turner and Voncile Haynie Turner. His paternal grandparents were William Ocie Turner and Lula Ann Moseley Turner of Wetumpka and his maternal grandparents were Allen Haynie and Minnie Lee Singleton Haynie of Santuck.
He graduated from Wetumpka High School in the class of 1951. He was a charter member of the Elmore County Band, under the direction of Truman Welch. He went on to play in the University of Alabama’s Million Dollar Band and graduated from the University in 1957. He spent two years in the United States Army, 1954-1956. While in the army, he was a member of the 3rd Army Band.
He married Beverly Ann Pierce of Mobile, Alabama, on July 11, 1959, and they were married for 59 years.
Sam was a member of the First Baptist Church of Wetumpka and served as head usher for decades. He was a member of the Wetumpka Fire Department and the Wetumpka Lions Club for over 50 years. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of 1st National Bank of Wetumpka and First Community Bank. He was on the Elmore Community Hospital Board and Elmore County Economic Development Board.
Pallbearers will be Houston Gibbons, Bobby Barrett, John Abrams, Ed Reeves, Brent Turner, and Don Johnson. Honorary pallbearers will be the Wetumpka Fire Department, Wetumpka Lions Club, and the Christ Crusaders/Crystal Sunday School Class.
Sam is survived by his daughters Beverly Turner Mack (Dean) of Wetumpka and Leigh Turner Vines (Michael) of Brentwood, Tennessee; granddaughters Ashley Kristen Mack and Katie Mack Norton (Tyler) of Wetumpka and grandsons Samuel Thomas Vines and Mitchell Pierce Vines of Brentwood, Tennessee.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Wetumpka Lions Club.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The article below was originally published by the EAN in 2017, acknowledging Sam Turner’s long history as a firefighter and community service.
BY BRIAN TANNEHILL
ELMORE/AUTAUGA NEWS
They say beware of an old man in a profession where men usually die young.
Old warriors did not get old by accident; they got old by being wise, having the right knowledge, and being tough. Firefighting is a young person’s job. It requires physically demanding work in less-than-ideal conditions. While Mr. Sam Turner does not do a lot of the physical work anymore, he still drives firetrucks and pumps water. At 84 years old, he is Wetumpka Fire Departments oldest active and longest serving member. Wetumpka Fire Department was started in 1906 and turns 111 years old this year. Mr. Turner has been around for 50 of those years and has no plans of retiring anytime soon.
I was fortunate enough to catch up with him over the weekend, as he is a busy man. He owns and works at Turner Oil, the business he started in 1966 the same year he joined the Fire Department. He is active in his church and visits his grandchildren in Auburn regularly. In the middle of all that, he still makes time to respond to calls, come to Monday night training, and generally outwit anyone on the Fire Department.
Never one to want any attention on himself, he proudly said it is about the Department. It is about a good group of folks coming together and accomplishing something.
Growing up, Mr. Sam’s father, Cliff Turner, owned a service station in Wetumpka where Grumpy Dogs is now located. The Fire Department was on the hill behind the service station. There were no radios, no pagers and hardly any phones to dispatch the Police or Fire Departments.
The Senior Turner had a telephone across the street from his station where he received emergency calls. There was one police officer in the town and he usually sat at Turners Service Station when not out on a call.
When a fire came in, Sam’s father would blow a whistle to alert the members of the Fire department. They would all come to the station and get the truck and their assignment and then leave.
Mr. Sam said they finally had to establish a system of siren blast because there was only one bridge in town. One long siren blast meant there was a drowning, two blasts and the call was on the west side of the bridge, and three blasts meant the call was on the east side of the bridge.
Wetumpka did not have many trucks. The first truck Mr. Same recalls was a 1948 Cabover Pumper. It was the first pumper the fire department had, and meant it was the first time they could control pressure at a fire scene. Previously they just used a hose cart and relied on water pressure from the hydrants.
The second truck was a 1952 model truck, and it currently sits in front of WFD Station 1 now.
Mr. Sam said most of the time you needed help pushing the truck out of the fire station so you could roll it down the hill to get it started. You had to pop the clutch going down the hill. He did say it had a great siren. When you blew the siren, the headlights dimmed, so you had to know how to really drive the trucks back then. In fact, he said, one of the Fire Chiefs, Mr. Dick Warner could not drive. He did not know how. Mr. Sam said Chief Warner was a plumber and carried all his tools in his pockets. The city eventually bought him a Chief’s car and Warner learned to drive it from his house to the station, and then let others drive it after that.
Sam Turner was born in 1933, played the trumpet in the High School band, and then went on to the University of Alabama band in the Fall of 1951. After two years in college he was drafted into the Army. He was originally slated to go in the advanced infantry, but because of his musical background, he tried out and was accepted into the 3rd Army Band based out of Atlanta. There, he said, his niche was playing taps for funerals and driving a bus. Not many people wanted or could do both he said. He drove all over the southeast playing the trumpet. He always felt a bit out of place there because as he said “they were professional musicians, and here I was.”
After his stint in the Army, he came back to Alabama to finish up his degree. He then went on to work for Standard Oil.
He has lived all over the state from Mobile to Tuscaloosa to Huntsville, doing what needs to be done at any job he had at the time. In 1966, after making a name for himself with Standard Oil, Mr. Sam said he was given the chance to start his own company and return to Wetumpka, his hometown. There he started Turner Oil Company, located in its original building on Pine Street in Wetumpka. He still owns and works there today, along with his son in law, and a handful of employees.
I asked him why he joined the fire department.
“I was always interested in it, and my dad’s job was to blow the siren for the calls,” he said. Like most people, he did not know what he wanted to do when he grew up. His friend and classmate, Jake Strickland, convinced him to join.
Mr. Sam has done every job from Firefighter to Secretary to Assistant Chief. When he started the department did not have any protective gear. He recalls going to Montgomery Fire Department and buying their discarded leather fire helmets and turnout gear for $1 a piece. He was also able to get a set of red Eddie Bauer overalls donated to the Fire department to wear on the scene.
“We responded all over the county,” Mr. Sam said. “We were about the only fire department around. There was not one in Titus, Elmore, or Wallsboro.”
He thinks Holtville may have had one, and Millbrook had one. As secretary, he devised a system to keep track of calls. He wrote down each call in a log book, what type it was, and how many firefighters went. This way he could use it to present data to the city to fight for more funding.
Eventually he helped implement a dispatch system. He said “Fort Deposit had a new phone system so we went there to look at it. It was called a ring down system and allowed us to call 21 firefighters at one time.”
He also helped design the current home of Wetumpka Fire Department across from the civic center.
“I think it has worked pretty well over the years,” he said.
It has been remodeled numerous times, and currently houses three full time shifts, and numerous part time and volunteer firefighters.
Mr. Turner has forgotten about more calls than most firefighters have even experienced. Water rescue and drownings have always been part of the core functions of WFD. He said one year they had 21 drownings in the area. “You couldn’t hardly get back to the station before getting called out to another.” He still remembers the faces of most of the young people he pulled up. Those are things you never forget.
One call he will never forget was that night in 1981 he was shot while fighting a car fire on Jug Factory road. The car was fully involved he said. “I just thought the tire blew out.” In reality, a loaded shotgun that was stored in the car went off.
Double ought buck shot, and shrapnel from the body of the car tore through his left leg just above his ankle. Jr. Haynes was in the area on another call and picked him up and transported him to the hospital in Montgomery.
“I had so many flowers in the room that weren’t for me, they were from the community, for the Department,” he said. Again, Mr. Turner never wanted the spotlight on himself. It took him two or three surgeries and a year to recover and walk again. But that didn’t stop him from coming back to the Fire Department.
Mr. Turner is very proud of where the department has come from and what it is able to accomplish today.
From one or two trucks and one station to 10 trucks, and 4 stations. “We did not have the equipment, and a training program like we have today. Each Chief along the way has done a good job of growing the department to what it is today.” he said. “You can’t do it without good, dedicated people all working together. You cannot find a better group of people, and I’ve enjoyed working with all of them,” Mr. Turner said.
“It is a sacrifice you make. Your family sacrifices, your job can sacrifice,” he said noting how he has had to leave on numerous calls during a family dinner, or a family event. “There’s a sense of accomplishment when you help someone. When you see them out in town later, knowing you made a difference in their life.”
As we finished up the interview, that all too familiar sound of the tones went off…10-50 (wreck) Hwy 231….Mr. Turner smiled. He enjoys it.
From Secretary, to Assistant Chief, even awarded Firefighter of the year, and most importantly he is a friend to all.
“It is not about me, it’s about the department,” Turner said.
I disagree Mr. Sam.
The Elmore/Autauga News sends our sincere condolences to the family of Sam Turner, the Wetumpka Fire Department and all who knew and loved this great man.
