JOSEPH — In the 1940s, the Joseph Fire Department would donate old firefighter helmets to area children — and that’s how young Ross Fogelquist came to possess a fire chief’s helmet from the department.

On Tuesday, Sept. 24, Fogelguist, who now lives in Portland, gave the helmet back — not to the fire department, but to the Wallowa County Museum.

Fogelquist, brought in the helmet and an armful of documents and photographs to turn over to museum curator Jude Graham. He lived in Joseph from 1942, when he was 3, to 1950.

Fogelquist said the fire department gave the helmets to children when it didn’t want them anymore.

“I don’t know why they didn’t keep using them,” he said.

The chief’s helmet has a metal eagle on the top front that firefighters would use to break glass when entering a burning building, either by crashing their head into the glass or by taking the helmet off and smashing it. It’s identical to a Joseph Fire Department captain’s helmet already at the museum, and other than the colors, is like a helmet for a rank-and-file firefighter.

Fogelquist also donated documents and photos he had collected over the years. He said he has no family left to leave them to, but his parents were quite active in the area. His father, Charlie Fogelquist, had been district ranger for the U.S. Forest Service based in Joseph and they moved when Charlie got a better job.

Charlie had his office in the bank building where the museum now resides. Ross recalls coming in and waiting for his dad at the building.

His mother, Jessie Taylor Fogelquist, had been a music teacher at the old stone Lostine school and he recalled her making the drive to Lostine in the depths of winter.

“How she did that, I don’t know,” he said.

Like his mother, Fogelquist became an educator. He spent decades as a German language teacher in the Evergreen School District in Vancouver, Washington.

Among the documents he donated are papers and a notebook from the elder Fogelquist’s time as a ranger, photos of their home at the foot of Wallowa Lake and papers Ross found at the abandoned Freezeout school.

“In 1972 — 30 years later — the school was falling down and I retrieved these records,” he said. “Those are some old pioneer families.”

Graham looked through the list of families from the school and recognized many. She also found the photographs valuable, as the originals were lost in a fire at the Forest Service office.

“All the Forest Service photos burned when the office did,” she said.