Ex-chief praised; a life of service

Firefighters from all over the state came to Stowe for a funeral laden with tradition and brotherhood. Men and women saluted in formal uniform, schoolchildren gathered with flags, and fire trucks formed an honor guard up and down Main Street.

For the morning, Stowe village felt closed to outsiders as it opened its arms to those who came to remember one of Stowe’s longest-serving firemen.

A ‘richly glorified’ life

Inside the church, the Rev. Alden Launer told mourners that “God has been richly glorified” by Mansfield’s “single life, sown into the world like a seed.”

Launer focused on what Mansfield loved — Phyllis, his wife of more than 60 years; the Stowe Fire Department; and serving his community.

“You did everything together,” Launer said to Phyllis. “Together, always together, you shared a lifetime.”

At the fire department, “his tall, straight posture, his authority and calm voice” made Mansfield the chief you wanted in a crisis, Launer said.

“It was my privilege to serve under Wendall,” said Les Pike, a senior Stowe firefighter. Mansfield considered the department a family, and prided himself on knowing not just every firefighter, but every member of every firefighter’s family.

For his fire crew, “he had the ability to make everything fun that we did,” Pike said, and he constantly came up with ideas to make things better.

“Wendall always had a future in mind,” Pike said.

Pike offered Phyllis sympathy for the way Mansfield, on the couple’s trips in their motor home, regularly swung into a fire department exhibition or trade show.

“It was a fascination to him. Wendall always wanted to be on the cutting edge of new technology,” Pike said.

Chris Walker, a senior Stowe firefighter, remembered meeting Mansfield at 14 when he barged into his small-engine repair shop on Weeks Hill Road, where neighborhood kids brought their broken dirt bikes and go-carts.

“We would burst into his shop while he was trying to make a living and think nothing of it,” Walker said with a chuckle.

Mansfield would always help, but would teach, too. Walker remembers buying his own parts, and Mansfield taught him how to install them.

In his 20s, after serving in the military, he joined the Stowe Fire Department, where Mansfield took him aside.

“He said, ‘You turned out all right,’” Walker remembered. “When you’re that age, when somebody says something like that to you, especially the chief, it means something.”

Nephew Dean Percy remembers Mansfield’s commitment to the Stowe Snowmobile Club, which he founded.

Waterbury Fire Chief Gary Dillon said Stowe was always the first department he called for backup, because, under Mansfield’s leadership, the Stowe crew was always well-equipped and well-trained.

And when the Stowe and Waterbury crews fought fires together, “he always made us feel welcome as part of their department,” Dillon said. “Wendall cared about people and made sure they were all well.”

“He was really one of the kindest people you know,” said Heidi Scheuermann, Stowe’s state legislator. “He remembers things and was interested in how you’re doing.”

Stowe Fire Chief Mark Sgantas said he and Mansfield shared many “unspoken stories,” told with “just a wink and a nod.”

“Good memories,” Sgantas said.

Mansfield was carried to West Branch Cemetery in the Stowe Fire Department’s 1929 American LaFrance fire truck — the one Mansfield always drove in town parades.

Memories of Mansfield will loom large in Stowe’s mind, Launer told the mourners. “Let them stir and shake you.”