Longtime city firefighter was avid golfer and bowler

3/16/2005

Bob Carroll, 93, a lieutenant during the last 24 years of his Toledo Fire Department career and the oldest department retiree, died Saturday in the Hospice of Northwest Ohio, Perrysburg Township.

Formerly of West Toledo, Mr. Carroll lived the last four years in the Browning Masonic Community. He suffered digestive failure and minor strokes, his son Dan said.

Mr. Carroll was hired Jan. 1, 1937, and he retired 37 years later. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1950.

"He was real careful with the new men," said Bill O'Connor, the department's historian, whose first duty was under Lieutenant Carroll at the former Station No. 2 on Cherry Street.

"You were at his side when you were a new man. He was a quiet guy. He liked things his way. He's just the kind of man you'd want to be a fire officer."

Mr. Carroll was a graduate of Scott High School. He worked on Civilian Conservation Corps projects in Wyoming and California. He was in the Navy and served stateside in World War II as a radio operator, radio operator instructor, and later as an instructor of instructors.

"He was very focused on what he wanted to do," his son said. "He never had any education as a craftsman, but he was a very competent electrician [and] carpenter. He built several houses. Anything he didn't know how to do, he sat down and figured it out and did it, whether pulling a motor out of a car or fixing a roof."

Mr. Carroll golfed and bowled at least three times a week until the summer of 2003. He was a member of Rubicon Lodge, F&AM, and the Zenobia Shrine, of which he was a past master. Until three years ago, he drove Toledo area children for treatment at Shriners hospitals around the Midwest.

Mr. Carroll and his wife, Lois, married in March, 1941. She died in May, 1996.

Surviving are his sons, Dan, Dick, and Dave; sister, Laura Jane Lardinais; and three grandchildren.

Services will be held at 1 p.m. today in the Boyer VanWormer Scott Mortuary. The family suggests tributes to the Toledo Masonic Order or Aldersgate United Methodist Church, of which he was a 55-year member.