In The News

PORTLAND, OR — Massachusetts-based O’Donnell Funeral Home was named a Precoa Distinguished Partner. A partner for six years, their willingness to test new innovations and consistent support of the ProActive Model® led to O’Donnell having their best sales year ever in 2022.

SALEM, MA — More than 600 reenactment troops, a cannon salute, helicopter landing and rededication of the Washington Arch are all set to be part of this year's anniversary of the Massachusetts National Guard rendering of "First Muster" in Salem.

The birthplace of the Massachusetts National Guard will host the event on April 22, which is also scheduled to include a howitzer cannon salute and a military jet flyover.

BOSTON — La comunidad Latina de la ciudad de Salem se une a FUNDOARCU para la acomstrumbada celebración de los Reyes Magos con el apoyo del concejal general Domingo Dominguez. Este evento se realizara este sábado 8 de enero en la escuela Saltonstall ubicada en el 211 Lafayette Street. 

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The Essex County 4, a barbershop quartet, often has serenaded patients, families, and staff members at Care Dimensions’ Kaplan Family Hospice House. When a colleague, Jack Dowd, was receiving care there in August, the quartet sang to him from the patio outside his room. Little did they know how many lives they would touch that day.

In the room next door, Victoria Maxwell and her brother, Steven Melzar, were with their mother, Jean Melzar, who was nearing the end of her life after nearly three years of struggling with advanced congestive heart failure. Jean’s patio door also was open, and the quartet’s songs floated into her room.

SALEM — Loss during the COVID-19 pandemic required families to improvise and navigate how to go about carrying out funerals, burials, celebrations of life and memorial services. Limitations on public gatherings made performing them difficult undertakings. 

Some families went forward with in-person funerals and graveside burials restricted exclusively to immediate family members. Friends, neighbors and colleagues watched these tender moments play out over social networks. Circumstances brought many to opt for cremations over traditional burials. 

SALEM — Hundreds gathered on Salem Common Thursday morning to honor veteran Salem police Officer Dana Mazola as his body moved through Salem’s streets one last time.

Mazola, 56, was killed in a car crash on Jefferson Avenue late last Thursday, June 25. He was off duty at the time, but had more than 30 years of service with the police department and was nearing retirement.

City officials, leaders and police from throughout the region came together on Salem Common on Thursday, July 2, to honor Salem police Officer Dana Mazola, who was killed in a car accident while off-duty a week earlier.

SWAMPSCOTT — In 1989, Dana Mazola wrote the following on his application to join the Salem Police Department:

 “My main reason for wanting to become a police officer is that I have an ability to deal well with all types of people — and that is an important aspect of police work. In my opinion, a police officer has to deal with the public and I can do that. I enjoy helping people solve their problems and helping them through stressful or traumatic situations.” 

“This has been the most challenging part,” said Anthony O’Donnell, of O’Donnell Funeral home in Salem. “It’s been hard finding a way to allow families to celebrate and honor the lives of the loved ones they have lost during this pandemic. 

“We are used to celebrating their lives in a particular way, and now they cannot. As funeral directors, we carry the burdens of the families, but I don’t feel like I can do that in this environment. I can’t provide them everything they want.”

Anthony O’Donnell, of O’Donnell Funeral Home, said funeral homes are improvising. Like other Salem funeral-home outfits, O’Donnell said they are recording and live streaming funeral services. 

 “We had friends and family submit written remembrances of the deceased and place them on empty chairs throughout the funeral home with a single rose on each seat to represent their presence,” said O’Donnell. “The room was full of love and remembrance, and the roses on each chair were brought to the cemetery to place on the casket.” 

With funeral homes serving the towns and cities of Salem, Danvers, Beverly, Peabody, Hamilton, Wenham, Topsfield, Boxford and Middleton, O’Donnell Funeral and Cremation Service have gained a reputation with generations of local families for conducting business with grace and dignity, and providing compassionate and caring services.