WILLIAMSBURG — Roger Bisbee, a former fire chief and highway superintendent who served the town in multiple capacities over the course of decades, died on March 9 on his 77th birthday.
“He was loving, he was caring, he was honest, he was funny,” said Mary Bisbee, Bisbee’s wife. “He was just an amazing person.”
Bisbee died after celebrating his birthday with Mary, whom he started dating more than 50 years ago. Although the exact cause of his death hasn’t been released, Mary said her husband passed “because his heart stopped.”
Mary’s father was Howard Sanderson, a past Williamsburg fire chief, and she noted that she and her brother Paul Sanderson used to hang around the Fire Department a lot when they were growing up. When Bisbee came to the department for the first time, Mary remembered being immediately taken by him.
“Yup, I’ll take that one,” she recalled.
Mary and Bisbee married and had two daughters, Amy and Angelia “Angel” Bisbee.
“He was a great person,” Amy said. “A great dad, a great mentor.” Amy works as a civil engineer, and she said her father was very supportive of her career choice.
Angel also spoke fondly about their father, who she said was a quiet man who always had a nice smile and was always in a good mood.
“He was very generous with his time and knowledge,” she said. “He was pretty terrific.”
Bisbee served in the Fire Department and worked with Mary’s father at the county hospital. In 1978, Bisbee became chief after his father-in-law, something that Mary said made her proud.
Eric Cerreta, who joined the Fire Department a few years later, says he looked up to him as a role model and a big brother.
“I always admired him for his calm under pressure,” Cerreta, said, recalling his demeanor and management skills when fighting fires. “He would never get rattled.”
He also talked about how Bisbee was good at motivating those he commanded: “He could always get the best out of the guys,” he said.
Paul Sanderson, Bisbee’s brother-in-law, worked with Bisbee in both the Fire Department and the Water Department and, like Cerretta, praised his management style.
“He didn’t give a lot of verbal commands,” he said. “It was very clear what he wanted done.”
Sanderson also said that he never saw Bisbee’s composure break, and that he was the kind of leader that you wanted to follow.
Sanderson also called Bisbee “just a really good friend.”
Donald Lawton is a cousin of Bisbee’s who grew up with him in Williamsburg and served as a deputy fire chief under him — later becoming chief himself.
“I never heard him raise his voice to anybody,” Lawton said.
Mary said her husband became the highway superintendent in town in the 1980s, and that he retired from that position and from the Fire Department in 1999. That wouldn’t be the end of Bisbee’s working career, however, as he began cooking at The Lunch Box Restaurant, the now-closed iconic eatery operated by fellow Fire Department stalwart Anthony Thomas Jr. He also started driving a truck for Lashway Lumber, a job he stayed at until his death.
Lawton said Bisbee cooked dinner for the department around 10 times a year while he was serving and continued doing so after he stepped down.
“He had the best meatloaf in the world,” Lawton said, and firefighters would ask him to make extra and proceed to take it to work with them for the next week.
Shortly before he died, Lawron said, Bisbee cooked for the department once more, and made meatloaf.
Mary recalled Bisbee’s love of the town.
“He wanted things done right,” she said. “He did not want money wasted.”
Paul Sanderson also remembered his brother-in-law’s thriftiness, recalling how he used coupons to reduce the cost of a firetruck in the 1980s.
“He didn’t like to spend public money,” he said. “He was spending the money like it was his last dollar.”
Lawton said a lot of things that the Highway Department needed, Bisbee built for them.
“He was always looking for a better way to do things,” Lawton said.
Mary noted that Bisbee would repair his own shoes and work gloves, although she said that her husband was not stingy.
Amy recalled how her father wouldn’t let them throw anything away without checking it for parts, and recalled how he built a homemade pottery wheel for her sister using a sewing machine pedal and a motor.
“He was very inventive,” said Angel, who recalled their father’s “Yankee ingenuity.”
Amy said their father was also an “incredible gardener.”
“His corn was very orderly,” she said, noting that he believed in boiling water before picking his sweet corn. “I believe he got that from his dad.”
In addition to serving as highway superintendent and fire chief, Bisbee also took on other roles for the town, including serving on the Finance Committee, the Planning Board and as field driver.
The field driver position is responsible for retrieving escaped livestock, and Mary recalled rounding up pigs, horses and cows with her husband.
“Somebody’s gotta catch it and bring it back,” she said.
Bisbee was an animal lover, she said, who built the coop where they keep racing pigeons as pets. She also said that he was good with horses and built a chicken coop for them as well.
At the time of his death, Bisbee was serving on the Water and Sewer Commission with Cerreta, a role he took after Cerreta asked him to serve on the board in 2019.
“There was no hesitation,” Cerreta said.” All I did was ask.”
Bisbee was also serving as the secretary of the Williamsburg Firefighters Association and as the secretary of the Tri-County Association of the Massachusetts Highway Association.
Mary said a celebration of life is planned for her husband at a future date.
Bera Dunau can be reached at bdunau@gazettenet.com.