She called them her boys, and she came to the firehouse to make their beds every day until she was 90. She would bring a few biscuits for Mish, the station's dog, to nibble. And even when weather turned sour and the men told her not to come in, Giorgiana McMenamin showed up to work.
Ms. McMenamin, who died last week at 102, was New York City's last fire matron, and her death marked the end of a poignant but little-known aspect of firefighter life in New York. In 59 years of service to Engine Company 40 and Ladder Company 35 on Amsterdam Avenue at West 66th Street, she dutifully sewed and cleaned for a small monthly stipend until her retirement in 1991.
Since 1865, women like Ms. McMenamin, all of them the widows of fallen firefighters, performed light chores in firehouses. They would turn the beds, perhaps do a little sewing or wash some clothes, and go home.
"It was an honorary position, a way for firefighters to take care of their own," said Virginia Lam, a spokeswoman for the Fire Department. "The Fire Department has very much that feeling of family."
When Ms. McMenamin began working as a matron at Engine Company 40 in 1932, her monthly pay was $13. Her husband, James McMenamin, had died of a heart attack two years earlier, and the money was a needed addition to her $50 monthly pension. Yet the job, firefighters say, was about more than the pay.
"It was a way to let the matrons have some pride," said Dennis Smith, a retired firefighter and author of "Report From Engine Co. 82" and "Report From Ground Zero," among other books. "They came in quietly. Some could barely make the stairs."
Gregory Petrik, who has worked at the firehouse for 17 years, was taken by surprise the first time he encountered Ms. McMenamin. It was 1987, and Firefighter Petrik, then a rookie, had been sent to clean the station's bunk room.
"I walked in and Giorgiana was there," Firefighter Petrik recalled. "I walked right back out and told one of the guys, 'There's an older woman stripping the beds!' "
Ms. McMenamin's granddaughter, Carol McMenamin Cavagnetto, of Rego Park, Queens, described her grandmother as highly dedicated to the job. "If she didn't like the way the laundry came back, she'd take the sheets and soak them for a week," Ms. Cavagnetto said. "If they were ripped, she'd bring them home and sew them."
Though some firefighters described the arrangements with fire matrons as informal, a city rule book called Regulations for the Uniformed Force of the Fire Department of the City of New York that dated from 1952 offered an official explanation of their role.
"Matrons shall be assigned to all companies for the purpose of providing the necessary care of beds and bed linen," the rulebook said. It also stipulated that the matrons should be paid out of a Matrons Fund, although in reality, they were often paid out of a fire company's "house tax," to which firefighters contributed and which was typically used for station house maintenance.
As the decades wore on, fire matrons began to disappear. Washing machines arrived, pensions improved, and Social Security and Medicare came into being, and so firefighter widows had less need for the extra money.
When Ms. McMenamin retired, though, the men of Engine 40 continued to pay her $100 a month out of their house tax. Firefighter Petrik delivered the wages.
"She lived on the third floor," Firefighter Petrik said of Ms. McMenamin's Chelsea apartment, where she always set out chocolates for visiting firefighters.
"Here's a woman in her 90's; her only complaint was that she couldn't get up and down the ladder to dust the light bulbs."
At times, Firefighter Petrik said, when they would talk about the old days in the firehouse, it was Ms. McMenamin who got the best of him.
"She remembered dates, names, times, from years and years ago," he said. "She'd tell me a story and say, 'Don't you remember?' I wouldn't, but I was too ashamed to say it. Thank God she had that all the way to the end."
