Joseph R. Hoffmann; Former Fire Department Chaplain

Joseph R. Hoffmann, 92, chaplain of the Los Angeles City Fire Department for two decades. Born in Eagle, Alaska, Hoffmann was brought up in Washington state. He drifted to Los Angeles at the age of 18 and kept a promise to his mother that he would complete the two-year course at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (BIOLA). After working part time as a conductor on the city’s historic Pacific Electric Red Cars, he became a city firefighter in 1929. As he rose in rank to battalion chief, he earned a bachelor of theology degree from the Los Angeles Baptist Seminary (now Masters College). When Hoffmann was ordained a minister in 1945, the Board of Fire Commissioners passed a resolution appointing him chaplain. For 20 years, until his retirement in 1965, he ministered to about 3,000 Los Angeles families, many with no other spiritual advisor. He conducted hundreds of weddings and funerals and wrote often-reprinted prayers for the Firemen’s Grapevine newsletter. Hoffmann’s many civic awards included the city’s Public Employee of the Year in 1961. “I have no ambition in this world but one, and that is to be a fireman,” he once wrote. “We who know the work which a fireman has to do believe that his is a noble calling.” On Saturday in Los Angeles.