Journalist Peggy Carroll, mother of assemblyman, dies

Peggy Carroll, an award-winning journalist and the mother of Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll, passed away on May 18.  She was 81.

As a teenager, Carroll wrote a column in the Passaic-Clifton Herald News, and later wrote for the society pages – one of the few areas of reporting that were open to women at the time.  She later became a reporter for the Daily Record, covering health care, education and politics, and worked as a columnist.

Carroll later became director of public relations for Morristown Memorial Hospital and St. Clare’s Health System.

The former wife of the late Maurice (Mickey) Carroll, a prominent journalist who later ran the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, she is survived by her three children and ten grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, the Carroll family is asking that contributions be made to the Patrick Lawrence Carroll Memorial Fund of the Association for Retarded Citizens of Morris County.  The fund is named in honor of her late son.

The family gather at The Dublin Pub next Sunday to celebrate her life.