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William Lee Cranford achieved much before he died relatively young 94 years ago. He owned a coal and wood business and was a stalwart in West Market Street Methodist Church.

Yet, he apparently wanted to be remembered most as one of the city’s volunteer firefighter.

About a year ago, Cindy Ross of Greensboro spotted a volume of poems by American poet John Greenleaf Whittier, published in 1881, at a used bookstore. She found tucked among the pages a newspaper obituary from 1914 about the funeral of W.L. Cranford. She had never heard of him but became curious as she read the notice.

Funeral attendance was large, the obit said, “and there were numerous floral offerings, among them being a design submitted by the firemen representing an alarm box with the number 32.” The city’s old fire bell in the main station belfry on North Elm Street rang during the service.

A search of the previous day’s newspaper announcing Cranford’s death said “for years he had been an ardent member of the volunteer fire department and he was known as a fearless firefighter.”

Ross says a handwritten inscription in the poetry book said it was a prize for first place in an essay contest at High Point High School to Emma Cranford, identified by the inscriber as “my mother.”

Ross wanted to know more.

She went to Green Hill Cemetery and “I had to look around awhile’’ to find the firefighter’s grave.

The gravestone indicated he was 48 at death. Ross considered calling Cranfords in the phone book seeking a descendant, “but I decided against it because I didn’t want to bother people.”

She called the fire department, but personnel records date only to 1926 when the department became an all-paid outfit. She contacted the Greensboro Historical Museum and learned fire box 32 had been at South Elm and East Washington streets, next to the present Guilford Building.

Putting the “32” on the wreath made sense. The box was two blocks from Cranford’s home at 242 E. Washington St., now the site of Galyon Depot. A photo in the Greensboro Public Library files shows Cranford in 1895 with other uniformed members of Eagle Hose Co. Cranford’s home stood a block from Eagle’s station on South Davie Street.

In 1908, when someone pulled box 32’s alarm, Cranford likely rushed with Eagle’s horse-drawn fire wagon, “Dixie,” to a store fire at 329 S. Elm St.

A couple of years later in 1900, he likely shivered at a South Elm furniture store fire as temperatures dropped to about 10 degrees, coating firefighters in ice as their hands froze to hose nozzles.

Ross is at a loss as to the identities of Emma Cranford and the offspring who penciled the words in the poetry book. The stories about the funeral and death didn’t list survivors.

The short funeral story didn’t say how Cranford, who had moved here 25 years before, died.

But the story the day before about his death was blunt: He committed suicide. Bedridden for five weeks, the story said, he feared he wouldn’t recover. He also had business worries.

Cranford’s depression may have deepened when, from his bed, he heard Eagle firefighters leaving the station without him — knowing he’d likely never fight fires again.

Ross says her search was motivated by poignancy — the inscription to Emma Cranford and the fire box floral arrangement.

She says she felt uneasy prying into a stranger’s life. She hopes any Cranford descendants won’t be offended.

“I’m not interested in history per se,’’ says Ross, a prowler of flea markets, yard sales and used book stores, “ I’m more interested in nostalgia.’’

Contact Jim Schlosser at 373-7081 or beale1@clearwire.net