SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — A part of the late Earl Gage Jr. and his late wife Blondell, grace the sands of San Francisco. The city to which Earl Jr. dedicated his life’s work.

“I felt like putting their ashes out to sea was very appropriate to sending them off together,” Blondell Chism, Earl Jr.’s daughter said.

The couple was originally from Texas but met and settled down in San Francisco.

In 1955, Earl Gage Jr. became the city’s first African American firefighter while overcoming death threats and continuous acts of racism while he served the people.

“It takes a while to figure out who’s really for you,” said Chism. “He did find allies.”

Chism is Earl Jr.’s only child. She is grateful her own children were able to meet their grandparents after Earl Jr.’s passing in 2017, three years after his wife’s death. He was 90 years old.

Growing up, Chism says the family lived in a home in San Francisco’s Ingleside Terrace neighborhood while racial tensions were still high.

“Threats for him, threats to my mom,” Chism said. “Things like that, and I think, what an incredible inner strength it must have taken to bite your tongue.”

Captain Sherman Tillman, former president of San Francisco’s Black Firefighters Association, admires the courage Earl Jr. had during his career time as the first Black firefighter.

“Just humiliation that he had to go through, and then to come back and lace up your boots, again, and do it the next day and the again the next day, I mean, that’s an incredible human being,” said Tillman

In fact, Earl Jr. remained the only black member of the department for more than a decade after he started.

“At least when Jackie Robinson came through, it was only like, I think, another month before another black player came along,” said Tillman. “But Earl Gage was the only black firefighter for 12 years.”

Earl Jr. never had a home within the department for the first six years of his 28-year career.

He was bounced from firehouse to firehouse because the racial attacks and vitriol were severe and constant.

His white colleagues would not allow him to settle down anywhere for more than a few days at a time. Earl Jr. eventually had to start carrying around his own mattress.

Earl Jr.’s last fire station was number 16 in the Cow Hollow neighborhood by the time he retired in 1983.

Tillman shared how hard it was for Earl Jr. in the fire station.

“Well, there are stories of people defecating on his bed,” Tillman said. “There are stories of people peeing on his bed. There are stories of people letting him be the only one in the fire. Or, leaving him and not helping him.”

Tillman did not learn of Earl Jr.’s story until he joined the San Francisco Black Firefighters Association where he served two terms as president.

Tilman later learned Earl Jr. was not honored at the fire department’s headquarters or the city’s firefighter museum.

In response, Tillman worked for years to have a street named after the late firefighter.

Last year, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved renaming a block of Willow Street in the Fillmore District Earl Gage Jr. Street.

A mural is being painted remembering the pioneer around the corner of Rosa Parks Elementary School.

“Without Earl Gage, there’d be no black people, there’d be no women, there’d be no Asians, there’d be no Hispanics, there’d be no gays,” Tillman said.

Earl Jr. continues to be admired by fellow firefighters and loved ones.

“He was encouraged to follow a path that he was told would be very challenging, and he rose to the occasion,” said Chism.