By Rozanna M. Martinez
The Albuquerque Journal
BERNALILLO, N.M. — About 400 people paid their last respects Thursday to a Bernalillo man who dedicated 41 years to serving the community as a volunteer firefighter and fire chief.
Michael Carroll, 61, who retired as the town of Bernalillo’s volunteer fire chief in 2003, died of a massive stroke early Saturday.
A funeral service was held in his honor Thursday at Our Lady of Sorrows Church.
He leaves behind his wife of 37 years, Annie, daughter Lisa Benavidez, son Michael Carroll and grandson Fonzie Benavidez.
“He was very devoted to his wife and his family,” Lisa Benavidez said of her father.
Carroll was a devout Catholic and member of the Knights of Columbus Council 7633, Benavidez said.
For 20 years, Carroll dressed up as Santa Claus every Christmas and passed out bags of goodies to Bernalillo children at Town Hall.
Carroll worked 30 years, from 1970 to 2000, at Plains Electric, according to Benavidez.
“He handled electricity calls,” she said. “When you would have a blackout because a line was down, he would be the one to grab a thermos and head out there.”
In 2000, Carroll went to work for PNM for about four or five years, Benavidez said.
Carroll’s father, who was in the armed services and stationed in New Mexico, moved here from New York, Benavidez said. He helped start the town’s volunteer fire department.
Carroll followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the volunteer fire department at age 16.
"(Carroll) was a very simple man and what he did with his time was volunteer,” Benavidez said of her father. “Volunteers don’t do it for the glory; there’s a sense of helping and pride. He really enjoyed it.”
Benavidez and her brother have carried on the family tradition. She is an emergency medical technicianintermediate and her brother is a firefighter-paramedic with the town’s volunteer fire department.
“Just seeing him work and knowing what he was,” Benavidez said of how her father inspired her to become part of the department. “A part of it was, it was a way to be close to him and share it with him.”
Carroll’s son, Michael, said he remembers his father would take him to the fire department when he was a teen. He said he would watch drills and learn about the firetrucks and decided to join the department when he turned 18.
“I just did it because I wanted to help people and be like my dad,” he said.
The fire department might have been a big part of Carroll’s life, but he also made time for family.
“When we were little, me, my mom and dad and my sister would all go up to Jemez and cook breakfast by the stream and go fishing and spend all day up in the mountains,” Carroll’s son said.
Michael said he has continued the tradition with his nephew, Fonzie.
“It’s hard, we’d always talk and he’d have a calm and reassuring tone no matter how bad or difficult it was, it was always that same warm tone,” Michael said of his father. “It made you feel like everything was going to be all right.”