Bob Van Doren: ‘I’ll make out all right. I’m doing all I can.’
By John Tredrea
Bob Van Doren is a man of few words and, understandably enough, seemed even more taciturn than usual early Wednesday morning. In an incisive way, though, he didn’t need to say anything. What he was doing, and his demeanor while he did it, seemed to say everything necessary about what was going on inside him and what kind of man he is, has been and will be.
Asked to speculate about the future of his lumberyard, Mr. Van Doren didn’t even look up from the work he was doing. He just picked up another 2-by-4-inch board and put it on the forks of the forklift onto which he already had loaded dozens of 2-by-4s, one at a time, and replied in a quietly even tone: "I’ll make out all right. I’m doing all I can."
Several large stacks of undamaged 2-by-4s were partially buried by the charred remains of the two-story building that was destroyed by fire at Mr. Van Doren’s lumberyard Monday morning. It was this still-usable wood that Mr. Van Doren the only person in the lumberyard at the time was retrieving in Wednesday morning’s sharply cold weather. Asked if he wanted any help with his task, he stooped, picked up another board and stated as he turned toward the forklift: "No, that’s OK, thanks."
Fire officials believe the lumberyard blaze started from a wood stove inside the office portion of the now-destroyed building. The space not taken by the office was used for storage of construction materials.
"The building is a total loss," said Capt. George Meyer of the Hopewell Township Police Department. "The fire is not regarded suspicious at this point. It’s still under investigation."
The alarm for the fire was called in at 11:15 a.m. It was declared under control less than an hour later by fire officials. The Hopewell Fire Department responded along with units from the Pennington and Union Fire companies. Montgomery and Lawrence townships sent firefighters as well. In charge of firefighting operations was Ed Van Doren, chief of the Hopewell Fire Department and Bob Van Doren’s nephew.
Chief Van Doren, who worked at the lumberyard several summers while growing up, said Wednesday morning he felt "shocked" by the fire.
"Mainly, I was preoccupied with dealing with the situation," he said. "But it did feel kind of eerie, because I have so many memories of the place."
Retrieved for the chief by Hopewell firefighters under his command was the lumberyard’s partially burned original sign, which dates to the yard’s opening 81 years ago. The sign says J.C. Van Doren and Sons.
Chief Van Doren said he was not at all surprised to hear his uncle was working alone at the lumberyard Wednesday morning, rectifying the situation there one calmly taken methodical step at a time.
"That’s him, all right," Chief Van Doren said. "He’d definitely old-school."
Bob Van Doren was at the lumberyard at the time of the fire.
"It spread very fast," he said.
He said he will have the rubble of the fire cleared away as soon as possible and, once that is done, plans to have a trailer from which to run his business brought on site. "I’ll take it from there," he said.
Nothing in Mr. Van Doren’s matter-of-fact tone and demeanor appeared to indicate he thought himself an unlucky or unfortunate man. In his work clothes and brown baseball cap, everything about him seemed to say: "This is a work day, so here I am, doing the work that I find needs to be done on this particular day."
Still on the job every day at an age when many men have long since retired, Mr. Van Doren has been running the lumberyard since 1951. His father, Jacob, started the business in 1923, making it one of the oldest commercial enterprises in this part of the state. Bob, who began working at the yard while in his teens "doing whatever they told me to do," he said as a smile flickered briefly across his face worked as partners with his brother George Van Doren until 1999, when George passed away.
The lumberyard is on Model Avenue, near Mr. Van Doren’s Hart Avenue residence. In the back of the lumberyard is a discarded railroad siding, so old that its rust is in the final stages of turning to dark brown.
"Railroad cut us off a long time ago," Mr. Van Doren said without rancor when asked about the siding. "It was 20 or 25 years ago, I’d say. But we’ve kept on. Do most of our business with small contractors from around here. A lot of them have been with us a long time."
One of the worst fires in the history of the Hopewell Valley area occurred at the Van Doren yard in 1991, when three buildings in the lumberyard were destroyed. More than 300 firefighters from 20 companies fought that inferno, which took several days to put out. There also was a serious fire in the yard in the 1970s.
Each time, the Van Dorens recouped their losses and kept going just as Mr. Van Doren is doing now.