Service a way of life for Solimines

EDITOR?S NOTE: Inside today?s Daily Item is our annual Greater Lynn Pride section, recognizing area individuals and couples who are making a positive difference in the community every day. Pick up a copy of today’s paper to read about them all.LYNN – David Solimine Sr. joked with his physician, Dr. Fred Shmase, one day last week following his annual checkup.?I asked him, ?Is there something you?re telling people that I don?t know?” Solimine recounted later that same day while seated with his wife, Mary Jane, at their 56 Belmont Ave. home. “Because suddenly all these things are coming up this year.”The “things” are honors he, his wife and the Solimine family are racking up from so many different groups and organizations.Earlier this year the Solimines were feted for their many years of support and contributions to My Brother?s Table in Lynn. Next month the entire family will be honored by Catholic Charities North at its Annual Gala (May 2 at Hawthorne Hotel in Salem), with its “A Salute To Partnership” award. David Solimine Sr. has also been named grand marshal of what is shaping up to be Lynn?s biggest-ever Veterans Appreciation Parade (Sept. 15); and on April 27 at the Nahant Country Club, he will be inducted into the Lynn Classical High School Hall of Fame.All of that only scratches the surface of the couple?s more than five decades of community service, philanthropy and involvement in church and civic groups. Both have been involved throughout their marriage at Sacred Heart Parish, the Order of Malta and the Boston North Cancer Association; today both are cancer survivors.David Sr. is also founder of Santa Island in Wyoma Square to benefit the Salvation Army/Item Santa Fund; director of the United Fund Council of Greater Lynn; founding member of the Lynn Business Partnership and a member of the Greater Lynn Chamber of Commerce, which gives an annual community service award in his honor.Humble startThe youngest of five children of Italian immigrants Damiano “Dave” and Agnes (Visconti) Solimine, David Sr. was raised at 24 Spruce St., just a stone?s throw from his home today.Mary Jane (Melanson) Solimine was raised in Salem, one of eight children born to Anselm and Alice (Cormier) Melanson, and she remembers her parents struggling to make ends meet for the large family.?My father was just a carpenter. There wasn?t a lot of extra money, and I can remember by mother mending our clothes and my brothers? friends? clothes,” Mary Jane said. “When you grow up seeing those things, you can?t help but always think of those who are less fortunate than yourself, and that?s the way we both feel.”Dave Sr. said he also knows what it?s like to struggle while starting a business with a young family. After graduating from Classical High in 1953, he served six years in the Massachusetts Air National Guard. It was in 1956, one night on Cape Cod, when he met the woman who would become his wife, who ironically lived the next city over from his hometown.At age 21 Mary Jane lived on Lafayette Street in Salem and worked at the Registry of Deeds. She was also a widow. Her first husband, to whom she was married just three-and-half months, was 24 when he was among 13 people killed in the Great Swampscott Train Wreck of Feb. 28, 1956.While that was traumatic, Mary Jane said because she had no children with her first husband, “My life didn?t change a lot. I kept working and it almost seemed more like I had broken up with someone.”It was that summer when her girlfriends from work took her to Cape Cod for vacation.?I was with a group of girls and he was with a group of guys we met and we talked a lot, but we didn?t start dating then,” she recalled, noting he didn?t actually call her until the following January.?He called two other girls prior to calling me for a date the next night, to go to dinner and dancing, but they were busy and I wasn?t, so the rest is history,” she said, smiling. “It?s funny how things happen.”Business-mindedThe couple married in 1957