On the first anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, the members of the Dix Hills Fire Department dedicated a bell in his memory. The bell now sits in front of the department’s first firehouse on the east side of Deer Park Road, south of the Expressway. The bell was a gift from the Brothers of St. Francis, who had recently relocated from Dix Hills to Oyster Bay, and who were active in the fire department since shortly after its creation in 1947.
The Brothers of St. Francis were teachers. Locally, they taught at St. Anthony’s High School in the San Remo section of Smithtown (from 1933 to 1984 when the school moved to the former Holy Family Diocesan high school in South Huntington) and operated Camp Alvernia in Centerport. To accommodate a growing number of young men entering the order, the Franciscans opened the St. Francis Novitiate on November 21, 1949 on a 30-acre property on the southeast side of Straight Path about a third of a mile from Deer Park Road. The property had been left by Mrs. Elizabeth A. Collins to the Diocese of Brooklyn when she died. The Brothers converted the house for school use and built several additional structures, doing all the work themselves except plumbing and heating. The Brothers also grew vegetables and raised poultry and pigs on the property.
When volunteers from the newly formed fire department began building their first firehouse on Deer Park Road, the Brothers stored one of the department’s trucks in their garage. The Brothers provided a more lasting service to the fire department as dispatchers. Originally, calls to the fire department were routed to the fire chief’s house. The chief’s wife would then initiate a call tree by calling the homes of other firefighters alerting them to the emergency. The calls would be relayed from one volunteer’s house to the next. This was not an ideal system, especially if no one was home to answer the call. What was needed was a telephone that would be answered at all hours. Since the Brothers were always on campus, they would always be available to answer the call.
When a call came into the Novitiate, the brother answering the call would note the type of fire and its location and then activate the siren at the firehouse. The first volunteer to arrive at the fire house would get the information about the fire from the Novitiate and write the information on the blackboard for the firemen who came later. The Brothers provided the service free of charge throughout the 1950s. Their role was unknown to most residents of the community.
Brother Bernard, who was in charge of the Novitiate, often gave the invocation at fire department dinners and was made an honorary member of the department.
The close association between the Brothers and the fire department came to end after the Brothers purchased a 24-acre property in Upper Brookville in 1961. The new site offered more room to house the increasing enrollment at the Novitiate. Before the Brothers left, the fire department invited the community to a full dress review at the Novitiate on July 4, 1961.
The property on Straight Path was subdivided in 1963. Over a hundred houses now sit on Longworth Avenue, Ascot Court, Kent Place, Hastings Street, and Wentworth Drive. No trace of the area’s former use as a training site for young Franciscans can be found.
After they left, the Brothers had one more contribution to make to the fire department. On November 22, 1964, the fire department dedicated a one-ton bell donated by the Brothers in memory of the assassinated president. The bell, which was cast in 1872, is proudly displayed in front of the firehouse.
A more complete account of the early history of the Dix Hills Fire Department by ex-Chief Perry D. Hatch can be found here.
Huntington History 
Another great slice of history!