'The best example of a public servant'

By Jason Smith

The Facts

Published November 20, 2007

LAKE JACKSON — Paul Israel’s three children have never known anything besides public service. Growing up with a firefighter as a father, they saw firsthand what it meant to help out people in need.

“He would be taking us to school, and if he got a call, we would beg him to take us with him and we would just sit there in the truck and watch,” said his daughter, Paula Matzke, 42. “We thought it was so neat that our dad helped so many people out.

“We wanted to grow up and be like him,” she said. “He was our hero.” Even on Christmas Day, if Israel got a fire call, he would leave to help.

“I think my kids learned how to say fire truck before they learned how to say Mama,” said his wife, Mary Helen Israel.

Chris Israel, 44, went on to be like his father as a volunteer firefighter in Lake Jackson, Wild Peach, Brazoria and now as an instructor at the Texas A&M Fire Training School. Matzke became a paralegal while Israel’s youngest daughter, Stephanie Israel, 37, devoted her life to a career in public education.

“He was the best example of a public servant,” Stephanie Israel said. “I think the model he set for public service was an inspiration to all of us.”

Not only did Israel, 77, leave a legacy of public service with his family when he passed away Sunday, but also for the entire community.

“Paul instilled volunteerism and the spirit of giving back,” Lake Jackson City Manager Bill Yenne said. “He will never be gone but will always be with us. People will see what he did, and it will be carried on.”

Israel served with the Lake Jackson Volunteer Fire Department for 42 years. He joined the department in 1954, was chief from 1957-87 and was the city’s first fire marshal from 1979 until his retirement in 1996. The new Lake Jackson fire station was dedicated to him in 2005 for his many years of service.

“The fire department is where it is today due to him,” Lake Jackson Fire Chief Mike Harper said. “He is the reason that I’m with the fire department.”

Harper said Israel served as a reference to get him into the department when he joined.

During Israel’s tenure with the department, it grew from about seven volunteer members to the 49 today who answer about 500 calls annually, Harper said.

“It is amazing that we have managed to continue to maintain a volunteer fire department in a city this size,” Harper said. “I think this is partly because of the legacy Paul left behind.”

Originally from New Mexico, Israel moved to Lake Jackson in 1952 after his stint in the U.S. Navy during the Korean Conflict, Mary Helen Israel said. His brother got him a job working for Dow Chemical Co., but after six weeks, he was laid off, she said.

“A good friend of his who was in the fire department had asked him to join,” she said. “So he made an application and was accepted.”

Israel had many jobs during his career, including pumping gas, a banker, a repairman and a gas station owner, Mary Helen Israel said. It was when he pumped gas at a service station that he met his wife. She was still in high school.

“The fire department was his niche,” she said. “He was very dedicated to the fire service and was so involved — he had many leadership qualities.”

Just three years after he joined the department, he became fire chief, the same year he was married, Mary Helen Israel said.

“It was a very big year for him,” she said.

When Israel joined the department, all the city had was one small fire station with three small truck bays, she said.

“He was very instrumental in the police and fire building and station No. 2 being built,” she said.

Every time a hurricane or tropical storm hit hard enough for the city to be evacuated, Israel and sometimes his family stayed behind to help out. Chris Israel recalls staying back with his father during a tropical storm in 1981.

“We helped evacuate a nursing home,” he said. “We spent about eight hours getting them all out and in school buses to Rosenberg.”

Israel believed practice makes perfect and always emphasized training, Mary Helen Israel said. He was an instructor for 34 years at the Texas A&M Fire Training School, taught his own program to local schoolchildren called “Fire Prevention Lake Jackson Style,” and was instrumental in getting the training field, now called the Israel-Setzer Fire Field, near Angleton.

“He worked and worked at trying to get that field and didn’t quit until he got it,” Chris Israel said.

Anything Israel thought the department needed, he worked hard to get, his son said. He also worked hard to get a special fire truck in 1986 painted red, white and blue to commemorate Texas’ sesquicentennial. The truck was a functioning fire truck and the city needed one, Chris Israel said.

“He saw it and said he wanted that truck,” Mary Helen Israel said. “He wrote a check for it for $116,000 and told them to hold it until he got it approved by City Council.

“I didn’t know it, but it was a personal check,” she said. “We have it framed now.”

Israel put a proposal together and presented it to council, which approved it.

“The city manager called it ‘Paul’s Parade Truck,’” Mary Helen Israel said.

Although Israel was a determined man, his children remember him as a jokester with a great sense of humor.

“When he taught his program to schoolchildren, he showed how a can of hairspray can become like a blow torch,” Matzke said. “He would tell them that his wife and daughter have to always be very careful because they use so much hairspray.”

Matzke also remembers when her father picked her up from school at Lake Jackson Intermediate in the fire truck.

“I was older, little things embarrassed me easily,” she said. “As soon as he hit the parking lot he would turn on the sirens and lights. He loved embarrassing us.”

Israel’s spirit of public service is kept alive by his grandchildren. Tasha Israel is at Sam Houston State University learning forensic science because she wants to be an investigator.

“I do a lot of volunteer work in organizations here at college,” she said. “I admired him so much growing up. He is so well-respected in his community and field.”

Mary Helen Israel said everything her husband did was rooted in his commitment to making the world a better place.

“He was very humble and always thought of what he could do for his community instead of the other way around,” Yenne said.

Jason Smith covers Lake Jackson for The Facts. Contact him at (979) 237-0150.

Often, we are asked "why do you volunteer and what's in it for you"?

Well... that's a pretty hard question to answer.

We see people in the worst of times.

We don't always save every victim or their property.

And... it takes a great deal of time away from our families.

Sometimes we see things that no person should ever have to see in their lifetime, but sadly, this is a part of the job that we must perform.

So... again, many ask, why do we do it?

Well..because...

We know that there are few who will answer the call to service.

We know that if no one responded to your emergency, there would be more heartbreak and suffering.

We know that for each instance of tragedy we see, there is sometimes a glimmer of hope that breaks through the sorrow.

We know that warm feeling that comes over us when we see a child's face light up when he or she gets to sound the siren during Fire Safety Week, or a family's appreciation when we take the time to retrieve their precious photo albums from their burning home so they may continue to enjoy the memories of the past.

And.... we know that it's not about bravery or heroism, it's just about doing what's right, and helping your neighbor.

So... Now we ask...

Are YOU up to the task???

The Homeland Security Status as of October 11, 2008