Dave was born in 1975 at Shiloh County Medical Center, the son of a Roman Catholic third-generation firefighter and a housewife. He grew up in a fairly middle-class neighborhood, attending Shiloh County Public Schools and playing in the Fort Shannon Recreational Baseball League. Growing up around his father and grandfather, Dave was always regaled with tales from the Shiloh County Fire Department. From an early age, he knew he wanted to be a fireman like his father, his grandfather, and his father before him. As a freshman in high school, Dave made the Fort Shannon High School baseball team, playing center field on the junior varsity team. He met Mary Richards his sophomore year, and they began dating the same year. Dave made the varsity ball team in his junior year, and began to dream of going pro and playing in the MLB. Dave graduated in the Fort Shannon Class of ‘93.
After graduation, Dave realized that while he enjoyed baseball, his heart was set on the family business, and he applied for the Shiloh County Fire Department. He was hired and sent through the fire academy, becoming the third Wilson to work for the Shiloh County Fire Department and the fourth Wilson to be a fireman in Fort Shannon. Dave was assigned to Engine 14, in Delmore. After graduation in the fire academy, and Mary’s graduation from high school, he proposed to her in June of 1994. Dave Wilson and Mary Richards were married 24th June 1995 in a ceremony in Saint Mary’s Cathedral in Fort Shannon.
Dave and Mary took a honeymoon together in Europe, and when they returned Mary was pregnant with their first child. Christopher Wilson was born in April 1996. Dave and Mary bought a house in Kimberly shortly after Chris was born, finally moving out of the apartment they had moved into when they got engaged. In January of 1997, the couple was blessed with news of their second child, and in September 1997, Seth Wilson was born. Over the next few years, the couple had several more children - Christina, their first daughter, in November 1999, Jack, a third son in December 2002, Elizabeth, a second daughter, in August 2005, and a fourth son, Nathaniel, in July 2006.
After Christina was born, Dave and Mary decided their small house in Kimberly was no longer big enough for their growing family. They bought a large house in Oxnard, and moved their family from the country to the suburbs. They remain in the same house now. In 2001, Dave requested and was granted a transfer to Engine 15 in Oxnard, cutting his commute time greatly. He spent the next dozen years of his career there, choosing to remain a backseat firefighter. Dave passed up the lieutenant’s test every time it came around, always saying he liked being just a firefighter and didn’t want the headaches of command. After 12 years at Engine 15, Dave decided he wanted a change of pace and requested a transfer to Ladder 32 in Fort Shannon. His request was granted and he moved to Ladder 32 in 2014.
Shortly after his transfer to Ladder 32, Dave’s hopes for his eldest son came true when Christopher was hired by the Shiloh County Fire Department, becoming the fifth generation to join the department. Christopher was assigned to a different shift and assigned to Engine 15. Two years later, his second son Seth also joined SCFD, being assigned to his father’s original company, Engine 14.
In June 2018, tragedy struck the Wilson family. Seth was on duty at Engine 14 when his company and other SCFD companies responded to a working structure fire in an abandoned house in Delmore. Engine 14 had made entry, searching for squatters, when the floor collapsed under Seth and he fell through into the basement. RIT was activated, but when Seth was retrieved from the basement, he had perished. Firefighter Seth Wilson, fifth generation SCFD firefighter and the sixth member of his family to join the department, became the first of his family to perish in the line of duty. Both Dave and Chris took leaves of absence from the department to mourn their brother and make arrangements, but each returned to duty around two weeks after.
After six years on Ladder 32, Dave has decided he misses the life of being a backseat engine firefighter, and has requested a transfer to Engine 11.
