Aged 98, Mervin Roberts Reflects on 50 Years Service as Old Lyme Fire Department Chaplain

Editor’s Note: We are deeply indebted to Mr. Mervin Roberts for making himself available for interview and Michele Dickey for both interviewing him and then writing this article, all done at very short notice and in record time. Tomorrow, we will proudly publish the text of the homily that Mr. Roberts had prepared for the Memorial Day service, which is traditionally held at Duck River Cemetery following the parade.

Author’s Note: After Old Lyme announced it was cancelling the Memorial Day parade and exercises this year due to the pandemic, Old Lyme Fire Department (OLFD) Chaplain Mervin F. Roberts e-mailed the homily to me that he had already prepared to deliver at the ceremony and asked if it could be included in the town report, which I compile. His homily ends by saying that he has long been a member of the OLFD and, now in his 98th year, he can no longer remain active as chaplain, so this will probably be his last homily.

I called him to say I would be honored to include it in the town report, which comes out in mid-January, but wouldn’t he like it to appear sooner and at a more appropriate time, perhaps in LymeLine and the CT Examiner? He liked that idea very much, and daughter Edie Ritz Main asked that it appear on Memorial Day if possible.

Being aware of the fact that I have known Mr. Roberts since I was young and was a classmate of his daughter Martha, the publisher of LymeLine, Olwen Logan, asked if I might request an interview with this long-time friend of mine to find out more about being the OLFD’s first — and now 50-year! — chaplain. 

Mervin F. Roberts joined the volunteer Old Lyme Fire Department (OLFD) by driving trucks and fighting fires, including the infamous fire in January 1971 that destroyed the historic Ferry Tavern Inn and Restaurant. Along the way, he was elected the department’s first chaplain. No one asked him to become chaplain, and the department had never had one prior.

“I didn’t know I was doing it; I just did it! I went into it completely blind but there was something lacking, and I did it. We never had a fire chaplain elected before me, so I really don’t have much to go on. Then someone made a motion there be a chaplain among the officers. Prior to me, the Reverend Dixon Hoag of First Congregational Church of Old Lyme would fill spiritual needs, but he wasn’t a member of the fire department and I never saw him at the fire house. He came because he was a good friend of our fire chief, Everett Burke.”

If asked why he was chaplain, Roberts would respond dryly, “I had a black suit.” But the truth is that he saw “a crying need” for someone to speak up at meetings and address moral and ethical questions; what should we do in certain situations … like getting cats out of trees? “We had no business getting cats out of trees!”

There is a Federation of Fire Chaplains that now requires chaplains to be “ecclesiastically certified or endorsed by a recognized religious body.” Roberts is not a minister. He attended Alfred University in Alfred, NY, during and after the Second World War, when he served as an officer in the Navy in the Pacific for four years and one week, earning a bachelor’s degree in Glass Technology.

Also he took postgraduate courses in ethics and the literature of the Old Testament, but he admits he took these courses “not in anticipation of fire-department chaplaincy” but because he enjoyed sitting near a girl he liked who took them as well! “These were the closest I got to formal education in chaplaincy,” he added.

He elaborated further on the subject in an essay he wrote in January 2019 entitled, “On Serving as Fire Chaplain,” in which he noted, “Then, there is the matter of denomination. Although I happen to be a Christian, I am careful when in public prayer not to go much further than to pronounce that God is love. So then, what do I do? Simply, I try to bring comfort to the afflicted without being invasive.”

For local residents, it’s hard to imagine “Merv” Roberts as being invasive. He’s a well-known, widely-liked personage in town. That situation may have been helped by the fact that he and his late wife, Edith, had lived in town almost continually since 1960 and raised six children here so was known as a dad in a range of school circles.

He is published in the fields of conservation, science, raising pets, and local history, to name a few; he is a popular speaker and has served the town for 10 years as a selectman. He has always been widely recognized in Old Lyme’s Memorial Day Parade, either marching down the street with members of the OLFD or riding in one of the firetrucks. He is especially noted for his homilies at the Duck River Cemetery, which is the parade’s destination.

In creating what he feels may be his last such homily, Roberts realized that, over the years, they follow a similar pattern. He always muses on why so many residents of all ages choose to gather here one day a year. Is it the parade itself, or the free hot dogs offered at the firehouse at the parade’s conclusion?  Roberts mused, “We’re of a piece and we should revel in it. So few towns gather like ours does. It keeps our community close and we should keep doing it.”

His words resonate especially on Memorial Day since, in some sense, we mourn, and in another, we celebrate; we mourn the passing of all the various people and types of people buried in this particular cemetery, who have influenced our lives, from preachers and teachers to bird watchers (Roger Tory Peterson is buried here) and duck hunters, who watch birds for a totally different reason.

Taken together, they form what Roberts calls “a web of life.” Old Lyme has 12 cemeteries, and Roberts has conducted funerals for probably about that many deceased buried among them. He’s performed weddings for members as well, “in parlors and public halls,” and renewals of vows. As with funerals, all are “free of charge.” 

But Roberts’ efforts as chaplain have taken him farther afield to wherever he thinks he can be useful while representing the fire department. He visits hospitals and nursing homes or makes a phone call or sends a note or flowers or chocolates or, if the occasion arises, an engraved baby mug.

“Much of what I do is confidential, between me and the aggrieved,” he explains. But his role as chaplain over these past 50 years is not limited to supporting OLFD members and their families, or even the whole Old Lyme community. Earlier this month he was invited to be part of an honor guard of remembrance for a Memorial Day service for the New London Police and officials, with the New London Fire Department there as well.

It was held at the police station and included a flag raising — a uniformed service for those no longer with us. Chaplain Roberts, in uniform, offered the benediction. “I’m amazed, astonished, and confused that so few fire departments have chaplains,” he commented.

He went even further following the Sandy Hook tragedy in December 2012. Without being ordered or asked to attend, he represented the OLFD in uniform and attended along with Selectwoman Mary Jo Nosal. He paid his respects with the officials, then stood in a reviewing line as the caskets went by at the funeral of the victims.

He did this not only as a show of respect for the victims but also as a show of solidarity with the police, who were obviously devastated that this tragedy should befall young children, teachers, and administrators in Newtown.

Chaplain Roberts has filled a need for over 50 years for the Old Lyme community and beyond that we didn’t even realize we had!

While he may plan to create no new homilies, he produced five handwritten pages of notes overnight for this interview; he is an inveterate writer, to which his well-organized shelves of published and unpublished works will attest.

His autobiography, in two volumes, is already in the Old Lyme-Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library … in one form or another, there is undoubtedly more to come!