http://www.silive.com/obituaries/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/123227551061510.xml&coll=1
MARK CARUSELLE, 87
Retired accountant, World War II vet
Sunday, January 18, 2009
By JODI LEE REIFER
ADVANCE STAFF WRITER
*** begin quote ***
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Mark J. Caruselle of Grasmere, a retired accountant and World War II veteran who became a guiding force behind the American Legion on Staten Island, died Friday at Clove Lakes Health Care and Rehabilitation Center in Castleton Corners, where he had resided since August. He was 87.
Mr. Caruselle was a tireless veterans’ advocate, championing for health-care services, retirement benefits and a World War II monument in Washington, D.C., among other issues. He was the former executive chairman of United Staten Island Veterans’ Organization, a conglomerate of all veterans groups here.
Born Mercurio Caruselle to Italian immigrant parents in Tompkinsville, he married the former Ann DiPilla in 1946, moving with her and their children to Grasmere in 1959.
“Mark Caruselle did more or less what most of us did, serve our country, use the G.I. Bill, raise a family,” Larry Hartnett, a member of the American Legion of Richmond County, said in 2005 before a dinner in Mr. Caruselle’s honor.
“What separates Mark is what he did after his discharge,” Hartnett said. “He became ‘Mr. American Legion.’”
A graduate of Curtis High School, he enlisted in the Army Reserves while attending Manhattan College, the Bronx. He was called to active duty while attending school in 1943 and completed training as an aerial photographer in the Air Force Technical School.
Sent to Okinawa, Japan, his unit took photos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 24 hours after the atomic bombs struck. Then they photographed the Japanese surrender.
RECEIVED BRONZE STAR
He was discharged in 1945, having achieved the rank of corporal, and received the Bronze Star.
Mr. Caruselle came home to study at Fordham Law School with the G.I. Bill in 1946, before earning a master’s of business administration degree from New York University in 1949.
He served an apprenticeship as an accountant with an area CPA firm for two years and left to become a tax auditor for the city from 1951 to 1953. He served for one year as a special investigator with the State Insurance Department, investigating union welfare.
Mr. Caruselle founded his own accounting practice in 1953, which he ran in New Dorp before retiring in 2004.
He joined the Legion in 1948.
“I just did it automatically,” Mr. Caruselle said at the 2005 dinner in his honor after he stepped down from his positions. “I felt the veterans have served the community and should be respected for what they have done, giving up three, four, five years.”
Mr. Caruselle became post commander of the Lodge-Pignata Post in Tompkinsville in 1949; served as vice commander of the Richmond County American Legion from 1952 to 1953; commander of the county legion in 1954; served as commander of the New York State Second District American Legion from 1961 to 1962, covering Staten Island Brooklyn, and served as treasurer of the Second District from 1963 to 2004.
He was elected executive chairman of the Richmond County American Legion in 1988 and served until 2004. Simultaneously, he served as executive chairman of United Staten Island Veterans’ Organization, formerly known as the M&E Committee.
Mr. Caruselle was awarded numerous citations throughout his many years of serving veterans and the broader community.
“For me he was the embodiment of the Greatest Generation,” said Rep. Michael McMahon (D-Staten Island), who, along with his wife, state Supreme Court Justice Judith McMahon, befriended Mr. Caruselle. “As a young man he went off to war and really devoted the rest of his life to making the community a better place, and will be very much missed.”
Mr. Caruselle was known as an instrumental figure in planning the borough’s annual Memorial Day parade, orchestrated by the USIVO.
“We want to make sure the public realizes we’re still around,” Mr. Caruselle said in 2004 of the parade. The event shows respect to the soldiers currently in Iraq and elsewhere, he said. “We make sure that when they come out that they’re not forgotten. That’s part of our job as active veterans.”
Though he was diminutive in physical stature, friends and family looked up to Mr. Caruselle, said those who knew him best.
LOVED BY EVERYONE
“Mark pushed me right up the ladder to post commander,” said his friend of about 55 years, Jerome (Jerry) Neuberger, who eventually became the New York State Department vice commander. “He was like the godfather of his family. They all looked to him for advice. If someone kicked him with their shoe in his face, he’d say, ‘Did you hurt your foot?’ That’s the type of person he was. He was loved by everyone.”
As a young couple and even as they got older, Mr. and Mrs. Caruselle enjoyed dancing at social functions and charity events.
“They remained like newlyweds for 46 years,” said their daughter, Marcia Caruselle.
Mrs. Caruselle died in 1992.
In addition to their daughter, Marcia, surviving are two sons, Nicholas and Mark; two brothers, Anthony (Tony) and Leonard; a sister, Millie Giarletta; three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. The funeral will be Tuesday from the Matthew Funeral Home in Willowbrook, with a 9:30 a.m. mass in Holy Rosary R.C. Church, South Beach. Entombment will follow in New Dorp Moravian Cemetery.
# – # – #
Caruselle, Mark J. [MCatnd]
[JR: Attendees recognized on the theory "if it's important to some to mention in an obit, then we can spare a few prayers".]
Guestbook: None
# # # # #
