Losing a local legal legend

“He was a mas­ter at the prac­tice of law.”

— Judge W. Dun­can Whitney

“If there is one thing almost any­one who worked with Dick Fire­stone will tell you, it’s that he always made you feel good.”

— David Brehm

It is a cruel trick of chronol­ogy that when we lose those who have been blessed with great longevity, they have no remain­ing con­tem­po­raries to laud their good deeds. Such is the case after the pass­ing on Mon­day of Richard Fire­stone at the age of 98.

Born Aug. 7, 1913, Fire­stone first came to Delaware to attend Ohio Wes­leyan Uni­ver­sity. There he met his future wife, Ruth, a pro­lific artist. They were mar­ried in 1936 and Dick headed off to law school at the Uni­ver­sity of Cincin­nati. He was admit­ted to the Ohio bar on Aug. 11, 1939, just weeks prior to the start of World War II.

Dur­ing the war, he first served as an MP then moved into coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence and finally served as a Judge Advo­cate Gen­eral. Fol­low­ing the war he served with the Vet­er­ans Admin­is­tra­tion in Wash­ing­ton and then moved to Delaware where he reunited with his col­lege fra­ter­nity brother O.W. Whit­ney Jr. and Judge E.T. Humes.

It was dur­ing the period between the Sec­ond World War and the Korean War that Fire­stone made his most last­ing and vis­i­ble mark on Delaware County. A group of local farm­ers, busi­ness­men and legal lead­ers had formed together to explore the for­ma­tion of a local bank. They had been spurred to action by Clif­ford Good­ing who was then gen­eral man­ager of the Delaware Farmer’s Exchange. Good­ing was upset with the prac­tices and poli­cies of the First National Bank, the only bank in town at that time.

Fire­stone had been back in Delaware for only a year but joined the group of men who would found The Delaware County Bank and Trust Com­pany. Before they could even file their appli­ca­tion for a bank char­ter the local build­ing and loan asso­ci­a­tion closed its doors and headed to Colum­bus. Tak­ing a huge risk, the group pulled together their resources and signed a five year lease on the vacated space at the cor­ner of San­dusky and Win­ter streets for the then incred­i­ble sum of $24,000.

In a his­tory of The Bank, Fire­stone states, “We had a golden oppor­tu­nity to latch on to the best loca­tion in Delaware for a bank. We fig­ured we could open a small loan busi­ness if the appli­ca­tion for a new bank was turned down.” First National opposed that appli­ca­tion and it was Fire­stone who went before the Ohio Bank Advi­sory Board and argued that a locally owned bank was just what Delaware needed. The Board agreed. In just two months they raised the $250,000 to open the bank, and within five months, The Bank had two mil­lion dol­lars in deposits. Fire­stone would serve as Chair­man of the Board from 1950 until 1982 with the excep­tion of the period in 1951 in which he was recalled to active duty at the Pen­ta­gon dur­ing the Korean War.

After O.W. Whit­ney was elected Com­mon Pleas Judge, Fire­stone prac­ticed for years in part­ner­ship with Bob Col­dren, O.W.’s son Tom Whit­ney and O.W.’s nephew and cur­rent Com­mon Pleas Judge W. Dun­can Whit­ney. In a 2009 Gazette arti­cle cel­e­brat­ing Firestone’s 70 years of prac­tice, Judge Whit­ney said, “He’s been like a father to me. I’ve never seen another lawyer who could use time as effi­ciently as Dick.”

Ear­lier this week, I emailed the mem­bers of the Delaware County Bar Asso­ci­a­tion ask­ing for their mem­o­ries of Dick Fire­stone. Bob Col­dren con­tacted me imme­di­ately, not­ing that Mr. Fire­stone was a men­tor to him and to the oth­ers in the firm. “He and Ruth were always very gen­er­ous to us,” he said. “I will per­son­ally miss him a great deal.” Tom Whit­ney, now exec­u­tive vice-president and gen­eral coun­sel of The Bank, noted that Mr. Fire­stone had been a fig­ure in his life since he was four years old. County law librar­ian Judy Maxwell, who prac­ticed in the firm in the late 1980s recalled that Mr. Fire­stone was always open with infor­ma­tion and assis­tance and both she and Juve­nile Judge Ken­neth J. Spicer recalled his witticisms.

I knew Mr. Fire­stone from my time at the prosecutor’s office which was then housed in the same build­ing as his firm. At that time, he was in his mid-80s and came into work often. Though I did not prac­tice in his firm, he made it a point to know my name and to dis­pense excel­lent advice. Those of us who prac­tice law in this com­mu­nity will miss him for his wit and wis­dom. The city will miss him for the con­tri­bu­tions that he made to the ben­e­fit of us all.

David Hej­manowski is a mag­is­trate and court admin­is­tra­tor at the Delaware County Juve­nile Court and a for­mer assis­tant pros­e­cut­ing attorney.

Posted by Dave Hejmanowski on Feb 17 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.