It was August 1965. The Beatles' "Help!" album and the Rolling Stones' single "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" were the hits of the summer. Lyndon Johnson was President. Casey Stengel retired after 55 years in baseball. And 30-year-old Dave Solimine Sr. opened his first funeral homes in Lynn.

"The community has been great to me," says Dave Sr.  "I knew it wasn't going to be easy to start from scratch, with so many well established directors already in town. There were suggestions that I go elsewhere. But I live at the top of the hill from the house where the doctor delivered me. I am a Lynn person." And the Solimine name denotes Lynn tradition.

The son of Damiano and Agnes Solimine, Dave Sr. was raised in the family wholesale greenhouse but ten years out of high school, his first locations were at 444 Broadway and at 567 Boston Street, both in Lynn. Over the decades, he purchased funeral homes run by the Rhodes family and the Landergan family, which itself had incorporated the Donovan and Cole Funeral Home (which had roots back to the 1880s) and the Mavris and Mavris establishment. The Richardson Funeral Home, purchased in 2003, is the most recent acquisition; that home traces its history back
to 1872.

Considering those roots, the Solimine half century sounds almost johnny-come-lately, although on the other hand  it represents the continuation to 2015 of all of those traditions-Rhodes, Landergan, Donovan, Cole, Mavris and Richardson as well as Solimine.
"It seems like only yesterday we started. First and foremost, I owe everything to my wife Mary Jane," Dave Sr. says. "She's been a fantastic partner, supporting me from Day One. She did everything possible to get us through the early first years. Today she does a lot of sewing and preserving for charity, but years ago, she sewed the girls' clothes and made preserves for economy. She watched over our parents in their elder years. With the house and two funeral homes, she did the housekeeping, plus raising the kids. That's eight bathrooms alone!" In October they will mark their 58th anniversary with their four children and fourteen grandchildren.

"We kept plugging at it. It took us eight years to get out of the red. People were really good to us and gave us a chance. We will stay family owned; it's special to us and to those we serve." His son Dave Jr. joined the firm many years ago, and in 2009 grandson Joel came on board as co-owner. "He takes good care of Grampy," Dave Sr. says.

The Solimine Funeral Homes serve the whole Lynn community and the surrounding area. They are proud to have earned the trust of folks of all nationalities, all faith communities, with varying needs and customs, both ethnic and religious. "Folks have been good to us," Dave Sr. says.

In return, the Solimine Funeral Home staff are active volunteers in the Greater Lynn area, with annual holiday events, veterans' services, health care and hospice programs, relief efforts for disasters like the Haitian devastation, youth sports and social service organizations like Girls, Inc. and Boy Scouts. They are active in Catholic, Baptist, Greek Orthodox and other religious parishes, as well as the Community Minority Cultural Center.

To celebrate our 50 years of service to the city and the region, and to thank you for your trust in us, the Solimine Funeral Homes will treat you to free Ice Cream Socials in August at venues around the city, ranging from the Police Department to the senior center and other surprise locations near you.

Join the Solimine Family and Your Neighbors for Ice Cream in August