Charles Dunlap

Charles Thomas "Tom" Dunlap passed away at his home on Monday December 26, 2016 at the age of 63.

Born June 1, 1953 to Charles I.O. Dunlap and Katherine Hoddinott Dunlap in Roswell, New Mexico. He attended St. Peters Catholic School and graduated from Goddard High in 1971. Tom went on to college at New Mexico State University on a full ROTC scholarship. He was a reserve pilot for the United States Air Force and later went on to Boston University for his Justice Degree.

Tom worked many years as a partner in the laws office of Dick Bean. Mr. Bean had been a longtime advocate for the elderly which gave Tom a strong foundation in elder law over more than 20 years of their partnership and close friendship. He was a good friend to many, loved a good debate, and had a unique sense of humor. He will be best known for his activism and advocacy in service of elder rights as well as his generosity for those in need. Tom was active with the Roswell Commission on Aging and the Chaves County Joy Center. He always looked forward to his Thursday afternoon coffee at Denny's with his close friends and was a great supporter of the Dallas Cowboys.

Tom Dunlap, you are greatly missed by your friends and your community.

A memorial celebration will be held to honor this good man on Saturday May 13, 2017 at the Historical Society 200 N Lea Ave, Roswell from 1:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M. Inurnment will be 2:00 P.M. Monday May 15, 2017 at South Park Cemetery.

The following tribute was written by his longtime best and closest friend Judy Land: "It was Tom's devotion to his parents that led him to study law at Boston University. During the 1940's his mother and father met and fell in love in Boston where his father was stationed in the Coast Guard and his mother, a native Bostonian, worked in the city as an artist. Tom loved to retrace the steps he knew and imagined their courtship had taken them.

Tom was both a talented artist and a learned historian. He was a masterful photographer who loved and captured exquisitely the beauty of nature. I shall always cherish memories of long walks we share every season along trails on the shores, moors and woodlands of New England and, later, in the mountains of New Mexico. His photographs chronicling those times remain the most beautiful I have ever seen.

Boston is a city rich in history and Tom was a walking receptacle of that history. His love of art and his passion for early America found a happy home in the architecture of Boston and its environs. Through our day-long walks along the street of Boston, Newburyport, Lexington, etc., and later Santa Fe, Taos, Roswell, and Ruidoso I learned more American history from Tom than I ever learned in any classroom. He truly made history come alive.


Tom's regard and respect for his elders was evident from the time I first met him. Once when attending a wedding in New York he took time away from the festivities and traveled a considerable distance to visit my grandmother in an assisted living home in Troy, New York. Here in New Mexico we visited an uncle with whom we journeyed to Sayre, Oklahoma to find the site of the dugout where his father's family had once homesteaded.

Inside Tom's sometimes crusty exterior lived the kindest, most loving, playful and compassionate man anyone could ever know. He made the world a better place and I shall always love him dearly and miss him."

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Cemetery