City mourns Ralph Cronin

LYNN – City Tax Collector Frederick Cronin worked side by side with his brother for 30 years, but Tuesday he sat alone in his office, remembering Ralph, his deputy collector.”We were very close. He was more than just my little brother,” Frederick Cronin said of his brother, who died Monday while cross-country skiing in New Hampshire. “We had a million laughs together. We have all the same friends.”Ralph Cronin, 67, died about 12:30 p.m. Monday, according to the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. Officers said Cronin was with his wife, Linda, on the Oliverian Brook Trail off the highway in Albany in the White Mountains National Forest. Officials said he died about a half-mile from the trailhead where there was no cellphone reception but a call for help was placed at around 2 p.m.Personnel from the Conway and Center Conway fire and rescue services, the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Forest Service responded to the scene.Tuesday residents were lined up 25 deep at one point outside the Tax Collector’s office. Frederick Cronin said the rush was due to auto excise bills, which had just gone out, and the reason he showed up for work, despite his loss. The line proved a distraction for the women in the office, who were taking the unexpected news hard, Frederick Cronin said.”This is a guy that takes care of himself,” he said. “He was at the Y four mornings a week ? he didn’t smoke, he didn’t drink. He was a good guy, a wonderful kid.”Cronin was born in Lynn, one of 10 children of Frederick and Bridie Cronin. Frederick Cronin said they grew up in Pine Hill and went to Lynn English High School. Ralph Cronin also served in the Army and picked up a business degree before going to work for the city and his brother.In 2011 Ralph was honored as Irishman of the Year by the Friendly Knights of St. Patrick, which deemed him an unsung hero.Indeed he was remembered around City Hall Tuesday as a caring man who would go out of his way to help anyone in need.”He was soft spoken, very helpful. He would be the first one to help anyone in any way,” said Personnel Director Joseph P. Driscoll. “He’d never look for a pat on the back or any kind of recognition.”Frederick Cronin noted that his brother was also “a friend of Bill’s,” a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and helped many with similar such problems.”I had a couple of fathers come by today,” he said. “(Ralph) had helped their sons. He saved a lot of lives.””He was truly a wonderful man,” said City Treasurer Richard Fortucci. “I considered him the goodwill ambassador to the city. He was just a low-key gentleman.”He was also a dapper dresser.On hot summer days Cronin would don a straw bowler to protect his fair Irish complexion. Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy said she loved many things about Ralph Cronin, but she particularly liked the way he dressed for an occasion. For Red Sox opening day he would wear red socks and red suspenders. On St. Patrick’s Day he’d dress in green, at Christmas he had ties that played songs and pants dotted with holly.”I always thought it would be fun to take a walk through his closet,” Kennedy said.”Every holiday we would say we’re going to give a prize for the best dressed, then we’d just tell Ralph it was his,” quipped City Clerk Mary Audley.Audley, who is still reeling from the unexpected death of her own husband last month, said she saw Cronin Thursday.”He stood in my doorway, then he came in, gave me a big hug and left,” she said, wiping away a tear. “And that was it.”Audley said Cronin never failed to ask after her children, he never failed to speak to or help anyone.”He was just such a good person,” she said. “It’s just not fair.”