One of Albion’s Finest Laid to Rest

For more than 60 years, Carol deNicola quietly shaped the heart of Albion

By JILL KINGSLEY HINDE

Special to The Recorder

The measure of a person’s life is often not found in titles or awards, but in the number of lives touched along the way. By that measure, few people have left a deeper imprint on Albion than Carol deNicola.

Mike Sequite, former Albion Department of Public Safety officer, reflected on his longtime friend, who died on July 30, 2026, at the age of 86. “She was an amazing person,” he said. “Her focus was her faith and her family—she was a very special friend to so many people. I was fortunate to have her in my life.”

That faith was on full display at her funeral held Thursday, Aug. 6 as family, friends and numerous ADPS officers past and present gathered at St. John the Evangelist Church for the Mass of Christian Burial.

While deNicola raised five children on her own following the sudden death of her husband, Guy, in 1975—Tony, Beth, Karen, Matt and Pam—she was also considered as ‘mom’ or ‘Momma D’ to many ADPS officers and Albion residents.

“When she lost my dad, we were all young,” said her oldest son, Tony deNicola. “It was a loss that might have overwhelmed her, but instead it revealed the qualities that would define the rest of her life: an unwavering Catholic faith, extraordinary resilience, complete devotion to her family and a determination to keep moving forward.”

She began her career at ADPS as a dispatcher before becoming the longtime secretary to successive police chiefs. She spent almost 30 years at ADPS before retiring in 2000. Her children all went on to graduate from college and built successful lives, surrounding deNicola in her later years with grandchildren and great grandchildren.

“Her kids were her center,” said retired ADPS Lt. Gerald MacQueen. “She was so proud of her family. She had a vision as a mother on how to take care of people, how to listen. She was also mom to ADPS. She would tell you what she thought from her heart. You could walk into her office and close the door and tell her you needed to talk, and she would drop what she was doing and listen.”

That care and affection was reciprocated by ADPS officers, who started regular Coffee with Carol meetings to catch up following her retirement. The meetings outgrew their first location and moved to the Foundry Bakehouse and Deli in downtown Albion, with current and former officers stopping in to chat and check on her.

“Everybody called her mom—that’s the sentiment we had towards her,” said retired PSO Tim Stanley. “There’s not enough good I could say about her—she was everything to that department. This is like the loss of a family member. We all loved her.”

Her patience, calmness and ability to listen helped guide and shape the department as she served in several administrative roles and helped lead the department through the change to public safety from separate police and fire departments in 1982.

“Carol would have made a heck of a chief,” MacQueen laughed. “She knew the policy manual like the back of her hand, she knew right from wrong. Her word was gold.”

Current ADPS Chief Aaron Phipps was a high school student when deNicola retired, but remembers her from when his father, Kent Phipps, was an Albion firefighter. He said he is aware of her legacy in the department he now runs.

“I have been talking to many retired officers, and they all say she was their go-to for everything,” Phipps noted. “Her success in her work is a great achievement, but what speaks more to her character is how she handled what she went through in losing her husband and raising five kids on her own.”

She was also passionate about Albion, supporting Albion Public Schools and its young people. That commitment eventually became part of her family’s philanthropic legacy. In 2021, her son Tony and daughter-in-law Christie (Saurer) deNicola established the Carol and Guy deNicola Fund through the Albion Community Foundation as part of a $2 million gift supporting parks, recreation, children and families.

Albion Mayor Victoria Garcia Snyder presented a proclamation from the City of Albion honoring deNicola following the funeral. “Carol’s importance to the City of Albion is difficult to capture in just a few words because her legacy is really about the people she touched, the relationships she built, and the way she made people feel,” Garcia Snyder said. “She was someone who brought warmth, kindness, humor, and compassion into the workplace and into the lives of those around her. She became much more than a colleague to many people—she became family. That is why so many people affectionately knew her as “Momma D.”

deNicola also had a reputation as a practical joker and was known for her sense of humor.

“We all played practical jokes on each other,” Stanley remembered. “There was one where I rigged a siren above a desk near her office and she got me back within a week helping push my motorcycle into a jail cell and covering it with a blanket.”

MacQueen said deNicola relished beating others to the punchline of a joke. “She was a card,” he said. “She would jump in at the end of joke and spoil it on purpose for somebody. Her humor was important to her. Making someone else’s day was a priority for her. She would make you smile and that’s a gift.”

That gift was paid forward by ADPS as they provided a police honor guard for de Nicola at Kempf Funeral Home during the visitation and escorted her casket, carried by her grandsons, into the church. Following the funeral, two fire trucks and two police cars escorted the hearse through the city she served for decades passing in front of Albion City Hall, where several employees stood outside in silent tribute.

“It was clear how much people loved her,” Phipps said. “I appreciated the opportunity for our department to be there to honor her and send her off.”

Her family, friends and the Albion community filled the church to overflowing to pay their respects with Auxiliary Bishop Edmund Whalen of the Archdiocese of New York serving as principal celebrant. Monsignor John Paul Kimes of the University of Notre Dame’s deNicola Center for Ethics and Culture delivered the homily, and Deacon Ken Snyder, a longtime friend of Carol and the de Nicola family, delivered the eulogy.

“In my view Carol’s defining quality was loyalty–if she was your friend, you would never have a better one,” Snyder said.  “I always thought that this was important to her because that is how she saw her relationship to Christ–He sustained her and remained with her through the tragedy of her husband’s death and the trials of raising five children alone.  Carol’s loyalty was a mirror to the loyalty, or maybe fidelity is a better world, she experienced from Jesus. I also think that Carol was always aware of the grace that was part of her life.  In my eulogy I said I never heard Carol complain about the ADPS chiefs she worked for.  Well, she never really complained about anyone or anything.  Even in the last years of her life, when she dealt with so many disabilities, she endured them without complaining.  To me that was because she never took anything in her life for granted and saw it all as gift.  And it was that outlook on life that made her such a gift to me and many others who called her friend, or who called her mom.”

When Albion florist Anna Merritt saw the photo of Carol deNicola published with her obituary, she said she knew immediately her longtime friend was at peace. “I looked at her smile, and into her eyes in the photo and I think she was looking at me and saying, ‘I’m at peace,” she said. “There was a calmness in Carol that came from her faith.”

“Carol’s faith was deep,” MacQueen shared. “Her faith was central to who she was. “When I would leave after visiting her, she would tell me, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ and I knew she meant it. I’d tell her I would pray for her and when I got in my car, I would say my prayer for Carol. A big old piece of my heart is missing now.”

“At the end, she was able to rest in knowing her kids were all happy and successful, and she lived a faithful life of purpose the way she wanted to,” Sequite said. “She served and helped so many people in town. She was loved by everyone, and her faith was remarkable. There is no greater gift than that. She was at peace.”

“For me, Carol represented the very best of Albion,” Garcia Snyder said. “She was fiercely loyal to the people she loved, deeply committed to her family, and always willing to extend that same sense of care and belonging to others and to the community of Albion. Carol deNicola was, quite simply, one of those people who helped make Albion feel like home.”

Carol had deep ties to the Jackson area, as well. She was born in 1940 in Jackson to Rose (Grippi) and Rocco Comperchio and her early years were centered in the Catholic community in Jackson, where she attended St. John Church and graduated from St. Mary’s High School in 1959. Her brother, Henry Comperchio, who passed away in 2025, was a longtime fireman for the City of Jackson and he served as a Blackman Township trustee and clerk from 1984-2000. In addition, Carol’s family members owned and operated popular Jackson Italian restaurant Dragonettis, which closed in 1981.