The high school remembers principal Carroll
Irving Carroll, who before his retirement in 1983 served for 27 years as principal of Island Trees High School, died Sunday, Jan. 25, at his home at the Bristal Assisted Living facility in East Meadow. He was 96.
A resident of North Bellmore from 1953-2013, Carroll was principal of the high school when it graduated its first class in 1957. Prior to coming to Island Trees, he was a social studies teacher at Malverne High School. He also coached the JV basketball team at Malverne.
He earned his master’s degree in education from New York University and his bachelor’s degree from the former State Teachers College at New Paltz.
Carroll was born on Nov. 21, 1918, in Washingtonville, NY, the youngest of three children of Albert and Sarah Carroll, Jewish immigrants from what is now Belarus. In a story he told often, the future high school principal barely graduated high school himself, and resigned himself to a life working at his father’s clothes and sundries store in then rural Orange County. Three years out of high school, he was attending a local basketball game when a woman in the stands asked him where he attended college. When he said he didn’t have the grades to apply, she suggested he return to high school, audit classes, and retake the Regents exams.
He did, and was accepted into the agricultural college at Cornell University and the “Normal School” at New Paltz. He later regretted not learning the woman’s name, but credited her with changing his life.
Carroll was married for nearly 30 years to the former Naomi Greenberg, who died in 1982 at age 59. He later married the former Gerda Goldstein of North Bellmore, who died in 2013 at age 81.
Irving was a member of Temple B’nai Torah, the former Suburban Temple in Wantagh, for more then 50 years. He was an avid golfer, an expert bridge player, and would bicycle to
Jones Beach along the Wantagh Parkway trail well into his eighties.
He is survived by his sons Stephen of Hastings, NY; Jeffrey of Randolph, NJ; and Andrew Silow-Carroll of Teaneck, NJ and their wives, along with seven grandchildren, one great-grandchild; and his stepchildren, David Goldstein, Deborah Alevy, and Joshua Goldstein.
Funeral services were held at Temple B’nai Torah, with burial at Mt. Ararat in Farmingdale. For more information, contact 201-647-7646.
—Courtesy of Andrew Silow-Carroll
