Photographs. Citations. Newspaper clippings.
Preston Hicks Sr. and his wife Diane have begun compiling them into scrapbooks, documenting the family’s long ties to the Manhasset-Lakeville Fire Department.
“I’ve got so much of this stuff that I don’t know what to do with it,” said Hicks Sr., a longtime Great Neck resident and 50-year volunteer firefighter who now lives in Westbury. “It’s all over the house.”
The history is extensive, so extensive it spans 30 members of the Hicks family that have put on the Manhasset-Lakeville uniform in the last 100 years.
There was Preston’s father, William Hicks, and his uncles, Walter and Robert Hicks and ex-Chief John Paradise, who chased call after call, fire alarm after fire alarm.
Then there were his brothers, ex-Chief Neil Hicks, ex-Captain Pat Hicks and James Hicks, and his cousins, ex-chief Ken Paradise and ex-Captain Wayne Paradise.
Preston joined the volunteer department on April 9, 1965, at 18 years old, two years before he’d be drafted into the Army and sent to Augsburg, Germany with the 533rd Transportation Company.
“It was always in our blood,” he said. “We were brought up at the firehouse.”
The firehouse was Company 3 in Great Neck, where Preston served as president from 1980-82 and can still be found four days a week, readying trucks and equipment for the day ahead and organizes records for the department’s historical society.
“It keeps me busy,” said Preston, who retired in 2013 after 37 years in construction. “It’s all I’ve ever really known.”
Preston was honored twice this year for longtime service to the department, first with the American Legion Post 304’s “Firefighter of the Year” award and again last month by state Sen. Jack Martins (R-Mineola).
It marked the first time in department history that two brothers amassed 50 years with Manhasset-Lakeville. Neil’s 50th anniversary was in 2012.
“I love all the friendships I have made throughout my 50 years and seeing the faces of people I have met throughout my time,” Preston said at the time. “Everywhere I go, I see familiar faces because of the department.”
The ladies in Preston’s life were involved, too.
His sister, Teresa Hicks, and sister-in-law Barbara, wife to Hicks’ brother William, also helped form the department’s paramedics unit, which later became its ambulatory unit.
For six years after they were married in 1970, Preston’s wife Diane was a member of Company 3’s auxiliary, the paramedics’ precursor.
“There was one night when I was two-and-a-half months pregnant, and it was so cold the water would shoot out their hoses and get frozen. Here we are in the middle of the night, handing out hot chocolate or coffee, whatever the guys needed,” Diane said. “You just did things like that.”
Preston and Diane moved to Westbury about a year ago to be closer to their son, Preston Hicks Jr., a former Manhasset-Lakeville firefighter who is now a lieutenant with the Westbury Fire Department; daughter, Deborah Bohr, whose husband Tim also volunteers with Westbury; and son Jason Hicks, who was also a Manhasset-Lakeville firefighter.
“I always wanted to join up, ever since I was a little kid,” Preston Jr. said.
In the Hicks household, jumping out of bed at the sound of an alarm often indicated more than just the start of another day.
“We’ve been married 44 years and I’ve learned to block out that radio, but he’s always made sure to wake me to let me know if it’d be a long call,” Diane said.
Said Preston Sr. of his wife: “She is and always has been an inspiration. She knew it was good for the community. It takes a special person to put up with all of us running around.”
