Five Generations Of Firefighters In One Detroit Family

Emil Doll joined the department in 1917, became a lieutenant, and helped found the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) Local 344 in 1933, and served as its first vice president. His son, John Doll, joined the department in 1946 after serving in the army during WWII. John Doll became a lieutenant with DFD in 1971.

John Doll’s daughter, Carolyn Wilson, told the Firehouse News ”My dad always said, 'It's a good job. It was a good job raising you kids on it.’”

Carolyn married Harry M. Wilson, who became a Detroit firefighter himself in 1969, two years after wedding Carolyn. Wilson retired as a captain in 2002, telling the Firehouse News that Devil’s Nights in the city were especially dangerous.

"We would go out at 4 o'clock and we never came back in. And we were showing up on the scene with only one apparatus,” Wilson explained. “And they were sending ladder trucks to fully engulfed dwellings. It's a ladder, so you have no water, you have nothing you can do. You're just there to report what's burning. It was horrible."

Despite the hardships, four of the Wilsons’ five sons also became Detroit firefighters, and Lieutenant Tim Wilson, now a 20-year DFD veteran, recently welcomed his sons, Austin, 24, and Evan, 22, to the department’s ranks in 2017. His sister, Katie, is also married to a Detroit Firefighter. In all, the family has had ten men serve as Detroit firefighters in the last 100 years.

Harry Wilson thinks it’s entirely possible the Doll/Wilson clan will have a sixth generation in service. "I'd say it's definitely possible with the city coming back the way it is," he told the Firehouse News. "It's great to see."

Read full coverage of this story in the Firehouse News.

Detroit Fire Department photo.