When you speak with Ava Roy, the daughter of fallen Worcester Firefighter Christopher Roy, you immediately feel the same quiet strength that so many people once recognized in her father. Ava is only sixteen, a high school junior, but her voice is steady, thoughtful, full of wisdom earned far earlier than life should require. Her grandparents sit beside her during our conversation — steady anchors, guardians of memory, the caregivers who have helped her navigate the unimaginable. Together, they paint a portrait of a father whose impact is still everywhere.
“He was the rock of our family,” her grandmother says, her voice warm but lined with grief even seven years later. “When he walked into a room, people noticed. He never tried to stand out — he just did.” At 6’5”, with a deep belly laugh and an ease that drew people in, Chris Roy seemed built both for service and for joy. He raised Ava as a single father while putting himself through UMass Amherst, earning a scholarship from the Isenberg School for the remarkable way he balanced school, work, and fatherhood.
He loved big – vacations with Ava to Disney, flying to beaches down South, road trips on a whim, days at New England beaches, and simple afternoons wandering the Brimfield Flea Market. He was a devoted son who visited his grandmother daily and admired her own perseverance so much that he tattooed the word — written in Russian — down his forearm. Perseverance became a theme in his life, a lesson he lived and quietly passed on.
At the firehouse Chris enjoyed cooking for his fellow firefighters. “they loved his cooking” his father said smiling.
At home, he taught Ava everything from sautéing vegetables to the importance of patience — both in the kitchen and in life. He learned how to braid her hair, showed her how to swim, fish, and handle a bow for archery; encouraged sports, schoolwork, and trying hard even when things were difficult. He became both mother and father, raising a daughter who was, as she says: “a package deal with him.”
z“He adapted to everything,” Ava says. “He always tried.”
A Grief That Becomes Purpose
Every December on the 9th, the Roy family gathers for a ceremony to honor Chris at the Webster Square Fire Station. Worcester lost another firefighter in a city that has endured far too many. And a little girl lost the person who shaped her whole world. The support from firefighters, neighbors, and the community has never faltered. “We still meet people who say, ‘I knew your son,’” her grandmother says. “It’s been seven years, but sometimes it feels like seven minutes.”
Every December, the Roy family gathers at the Worcester Memorial to remember the nine firefighters killed in separate tragedies, including Chris. On the memorial stands a line Ava wrote for the court proceedings after her father’s death was ruled an intentional fire: “Every tear is a memory.” Her grandparents insisted those words be engraved — a child’s truth becoming part of the public record of grief and resilience.
Last year, Ava was given a simple assignment in photography class: take a few pictures and turn them in. But surrounded by classmates photographing horses, sunsets, and perfect suburban stills, she wanted something different — something with meaning.
She asked her grandparents to take her, and firefighters — including some not even on shift — showed up when they heard Chris’s daughter was coming by. They put on gear, raised the ladder of Ladder 4, the truck her father once drove, and invited her to climb on top of the rig to take her shot.
The moment comforted her more than she expected. “It brought me back to being little, when my dad brought me there,” Ava says. “Those guys were like uncles to me. Now I know they will always be there for me”.”
In the darkroom at school, while developing reel film by hand, her teacher saw something in the image and encouraged her to submit it to a regional competition. The photo — a firefighter climbing the ladder, framed in stark contrast — was titled “The Climb.” The name, offered by her teacher, resonated immediately.
“It felt right,” Ava says simply.
Out of 300 student submissions across New England, Ava earned an Honorable Mention — a rare recognition for a sophomore in a competition typically awarded to seniors. The photo now lives online at Ana Maria College’s New England Secondary School Design Competition, and in the hearts of everyone who sees it for what it is: a daughter’s tribute, whether she meant it to be or not.
What She Carries Forward
Now a junior, Ava is looking toward college — UMass Amherst, Bentley, Northeastern — with dreams of someday owning her own business. She isn’t sure what kind yet. She just knows she wants to love what she does, the way her father did.
She also carries pieces of him: the cooking, the archery, the patience, the perseverance — the quiet understanding that life is fragile and moments matter.
“You need to really be aware of your surroundings,” she says. “You may never get it back.”
In that sentence is everything her father taught her — the urgency to pay attention, to live fully, to honor what you have while you have it.
A Family’s Legacy, A Community’s Promise
As her grandparents explain it, the Roy family is simply continuing the foundation Chris built. “He built the foundation,” her grandmother says. “We’re just adding onto it with Ava.”
Your membership and charitable donations allowed us to be there for the Roy family in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy and it allows us to be there for them today – supporting Ava in her extra-curricular activities, sending her birthday gifts and other annual remembrances, and soon providing college scholarships so that she knows her father’s sacrifice is never forgotten.
The Hundred Club is proud to walk beside them, ensuring they are never alone as they climb — through grief, through milestones, and through the years ahead — carrying forward the memory of a father, firefighter, son, brother, and friend whose light still shines brightly in his daughter.