Holyoke community joins in celebration of longtime mayor’s life

Within Holyoke Fire Station - its entrance greeted by a giant American flag, its walls filled with a crowd of nearly 250 people, and its air humming momentarily with Dani and Lizzy’s soul tune “Dancing in the Sky” - Anna Beth Love brushed a cloth slowly across a casket, sharing a final moment with her “drinking buddy” and “favorite grandfather in the world.”

Taking inspiration from the song, Love wondered about the 85-year-old man in the casket, the late Orville Tonsing: “what he’s doing in heaven, what it looks like there.”

What didn’t appear to be a mystery was the choice of venue for his celebration of life Monday morning. Volunteer firefighters lined the station walls, eventually bearing Orville’s casket to Holyoke Cemetery in an old-time Chevrolet. Orville, after all, had worked among them since 1966: branching from his time as a volunteer firefighter into a myriad of local, district and state positions.

He served as president of the Colorado State Firefighters of America (CSFFA) in the early ‘80s. He was still working as secretary and treasurer for the Holyoke Rural Fire Board going on four decades. The CSFFA even made him the first recipient of his own award - the Orville H. Tonsing Excellence in Leadership Award - in 2016.

“So many firefighters, both current and retired, city workers, and nearly anyone else who knew him knew there was no more appropriate place than here,” noted celebrant Jared Davis in his opening remarks. “The family knows that every ounce of work that was lovingly put in to today’s service was gladly done, without a second thought, for this incredible man.”

As Holyoke’s mayor for 12 years, Orville served as a strong proponent for both the city’s Municipal Airport and the Fire Station itself.  Before his celebration of life ended that Monday morning, the latter building was renamed in his honor.

This will be the second fire station named for Orville, who along with his late wife Roberta Tonsing, pursued success for Holyoke Volunteer Fire Department. Roberta served as mayor until 2007, when she died of breast cancer.

“Orville and Roberta, they’re the ones who found the City of Holyoke’s engine that we use now,” said Bob Heldenbrand, a volunteer firefighter who spoke at the celebration. “Engine 112: It was a used apparatus.”

Further equipment gained through Orville’s help, he noted, included gear “from boot to helmet” for the Fire Prevention District, a water tender for Amherst and a new rescue vehicle for Holyoke.

“Orville and Roberta both held the Fire Department with a lot of pride and accountability,” Heldenbrand said. “And Roberta was especially tough. You had to prove to her why you needed that.”

A year after Roberta’s death, Orville found a new relationship with Penny Dockins, who had met both his wife and him while working as a city clerk in the ‘90s.

In 2008, as a bartender at the Holyoke Veterans Club, Dockins served him his favorite drink: scotch. Time passed. They “talked and laughed and visited.”

“When he asked me out, I said, ‘Yes,’” she said. “I never really thought, at the time, that we would ever end up as a couple. I just knew that he was lonely and he needed a friend.”

Describing him as “gruff, but gentle,” she said his work never had been about recognition. Orville’s obituary states his most famous advice was “Pick it up,” or - if using Heldenbrand’s impression - “pick ‘er up!”

“His big saying to me was always, ‘If you’re going to do it, get ‘er done,’” Dockins said. “He wasn’t nurturing, but he was loving. He wasn’t one to speak up first and say, ‘I love you,’ but he always made sure I knew he loved me in many ways.”

She noticed Orville’s health begin to decline in March. Nonetheless, he insisted on attending her daughter’s wedding in Mexico.

Following a difficult trip, she said, they settled down for a large dinner on the last night, where she wore a white dress with black, looping designs.

“He actually commented on it and how nice I looked in it,” she said, “and that’s not something he did very often.”

She wore the same dress for Monday’s celebration “to honor him.”

As for Love, honoring Orville could prove more challenging. She and her grandfather may have been drinking buddies, but she hates the taste of scotch.

“No, ew,” she said. “He had to buy me something different.

“I said I’d try a shot of it today, but I don’t know.”

Remarking on his predecesser, Pro Tem Mayor Kevin Scott praised Orville’s public spirit and hands-on leadership. If voted in to fill the vacancy by Holyoke’s city council, he said, “I hope I can do just as good a job as Orville did.”