About Us

Our History

When eighteen-year-old Mariano J. Silva left his native village of Candelaria on the island of São Miguel, in the Açores, he had no trade or any idea of how he was going to support himself. Yet he was possessed with the pioneering spirit and determined to make his mark here in his adopted country.


The year was 1884 and the country was about to embark on the industrial revolution. After performing several menial jobs, he was hired as an insurance salesman for the Prudential Life Insurance Co. – a job which earned him the nickname of "Tio Mariano de Seguro."


As more and more immigrants arrived from the Azores, and deaths among the Portuguese were handled by “undertakers” who did not speak their language, he decided to enter the funeral industry. Since August of 1890 when he received his first call (the burial of a precious stillborn), Mariano’s business continued as a family operation to become the oldest Portuguese American funeral service.


There are stories of Mariano’s big-hearted kindness that have passed down through the generations. Like when collecting weekly rents he once noticed a tenant’s child without shoes and decided to forgive the next week’s rent so long as there were “shoes on that kid’s feet” by then. Mariano also exhibited entrepreneurial resourcefulness by making his own caskets with wood that his team of livery horses transported by sled from a lumber mill across Mt. Hope Bay when it would freeze over in the winter.

Mariano's Sons: Eddy, Manny, Tony, and John

On the death of Mariano in 1934 the business was continued by his three sons, Manuel B., Anthony T., and Mariano Jr., who expanded by opening funeral homes in Taunton, New Bedford and Fairhaven. Anthony was later joined by his son, Milton R. Silva, in operation of the Fall River branch, and by 1950 they opened the first licensed funeral home in Somerset.



With the untimely death of Anthony in 1955, Milton, who was admitted to practice law in 1952, ran both the local area family funeral business and his law practice. He also found time for community and governmental service. In 1970, just prior to Milton’s appointment as First Justice of Bristol County's Second District Court (Fall River), his son, Paul F. Silva (see * below), joined the business, taking the reins as president; and, shortly after, they acquired Faria & Son Funeral Home (whose founder had been associated with Mariano prior to establishing his own firm in 1916). Milton’s other sons also entered the family profession: Richard in 1975; and Martin in 1984.


In 1985, the Somerset Chapel was greatly enlarged and redecorated to better serve the needs of a growing neighborhood. In 1992, the Fall River Chapel was also beautifully refurbished to include three sets of rest rooms, elevator access, and separate rooms for family to privately gather, if desired.


Both funeral homes, Somerset Chapel and Fall River Chapel, allow ample parking and have undergone extensive renovations meticulously planned to furnish a pleasant, consoling environment for conducting funerals. Even the casket display room, at our Fall River location, is specially designed to provide a variety of choices – yet, in a relaxed and unobtrusive atmosphere.

The success enjoyed with these expansion projects during this time was due in no small part to the efforts of our (now semi-retired) funeral director (Milton’s middle son) Richard H. Silva, whose innate attention to detail and self-taught / natural ability to understand construction, wiring, engineering, and architectural design made him a perfect candidate to supervise (in-house, as it were) all of our renovation projects over the years.


Milton’s youngest funeral directing son, Martin A. Silva, also maintains an active law practice (having attended law school nights for 5 years in the late 1990s to pass the bar in 1999). This provides an added-value benefit to all families we serve who might have legal questions. As Martin is often happy to answer all entry level legal concerns brought to his attention “with his funeral directing hat on” (i.e., without fee), unless separately scheduled formal consultation, representation, and/or drafting of documents, etc., should ensue. Over the years, families we serve have come to appreciate the valuable information provided by Martin – by way of his legal analysis of estate probate requirements at time of death (“de-mystifying probate”), as wells as advice pertaining to possible estate planning options during a “pre-need” conference.


(This is a high quality colored pencil portraiture [by Chris Kadlec] rendition drawn from a 2006 photo taken at the Annual Silva Family "Portuguese Open" Golf Tournament that ran for 35 years to benefit the Prince Henry Society - a non-profit, charitable organization dedicated to the future of Portuguese-America in their planning of various events which fund scholarships given to promising local area high school seniors of Portuguese descent who are pursuing higher education.)

Milton’s granddaughter (Paul’s daughter), Amy L. Silva-Rigtrup, first of our fifth generation in funeral service, entered the family business in 2005 and brought the positive energy of youth, technology, and new ideas for personalizing memorials. In addition to awards she earned from her mortuary college, including recognition of her work in their intern program, she received the 2015 Outstanding Women Award from New England Family Business Association. Remarkably, from January 2015 to October 2016, Amy hosted a weekly radio show, “The Silva Lining,” which addressed all topics related to funerals, death, and grief.


In 2017, Amy partnered with a well-established / well-loved couple in the funeral industry, Lawrence and Christine Quintal, to purchase Milton’s cousins’ funeral home in Taunton, at 80 Broadway. While Amy’s involvement at our firm in the Greater Fall River area has since diminished, she carries Mariano’s legacy through our Taunton family branch and continues to innovate her funeral care persona as the ‘FuneraLady.’


Years 2024 through 2026 brought an exciting development of expansion in our firm. Licensed funeral directors, Sierra Penacho and Michael Aguiar (Sierra’s father), proven invaluable employees, have purchased a minority interest in our funeral establishment. Active parishioners of St. Michael Church, they are very well-known, especially Michael who is affectionately known as the unofficial “Mayor of the North End.”


More importantly, Michael’s many years of experience in the local funeral industry (especially with Rogers Funeral Home for well over twenty years), together with the excellent skills he has developed in the art and science of embalming, bring significant comfort to the families we serve.


Sierra’s natural care, compassion, and empathy, along with her MBA, and the new ideas of youth that she brings, serve her admirably to address all of our families’ concerns, as well. Her organizational skills provide insight by way of improving upon certain of our administrative protocols and especially benefit us well in her role as operations manager – having taken over that duty upon the retirement of our longtime funeral director, Paul St. Louis (see below). We are thus delighted in the confidence of knowing that our legacy of care and integrity are well secured into the future.

Notably, the smooth running of our day-to-day operation is due in no small part to the consistently ever-present efforts of our longtime office manager, Kathi Grenn-Silva (Martin’s wife). With strong work ethic and effective communication skills, she often handles multiple in-coming calls (including important ‘first calls’ with care) and message-taking while simultaneously navigating the (sometimes complicated) online death registration system, as well as accomplishing all the case specific tasks of data-entry / recordkeeping essential for required forms printing and memorial/tribute processing.


Appreciation also goes out to other family members who have notably contributed to the success of our family funeral service – namely, the Silva brothers’ mom (& Milton’s wife), Mary C. Silva, who ran the office and kept the books for many years prior to her retirement, and Ana M. Larrivee (sister of the Silva brothers) who was bookkeeper for many years.


* Still at the helm (and the person with whom the “buck stops”), though now semi-retired, predominantly paying the bills and keeping the books, Paul continues to meet with many families “PreNeed” and assists families at-need with ancillary issues, especially life insurance processing. His attention to detail and level of industry experience makes him perfect as gatekeeper to make sure death records are accurately registered through the online system. His decades of civic-minded involvement in the community also continues to be vast, with Ser-Jobs, Prince Henry Society, and St. Anthony of Padua Federal Credit Union (where he remains its longtime chairman of the board).

Commemorating Paul St. Louis' Retirement

“... Perfect for this business, Paul's affable nature and sociable personality has served him well as a genuinely likable and trustworthy funeral director, the goodwill engendered from which has benefited us greatly over the years. In addition to his exceptional embalming skills, Paul's personal traits of always being conscientious in his work, truly caring for others, ability to find livable solutions to unusual problems with a level head, and resourcefulness in effectively staffing all manner of operations (pulling from his many solid connections in the community), not to mention his ever present unique sense of humor, all have added positive impact to our reputation (by association) and have helped us thrive as leaders at what we do in funeral service, which is a true labor of love -- finding inner reward by having properly assisted grieving folk who suffer loss. ...



Milton Silva once said of Paul that he "did it right," by that he meant he was doing his life right -- marrying well, being a good husband, a good parent sacrificing to provide for his kids, working hard, keeping the faith, active in the church, being a loyal friend, and doing for others in need. ...


... And as we wish for Paul a long, happy & healthy retirement, we can rest assured knowing that, however he continues to find fulfillment in life, he will "do it right."


Retirement Cake

Moving Forward with Compassionate Care

Proudly sustaining a heritage of dedicated service to the greater Fall River area since 1890, legacies of trust and personal integrity characterize the quality of care extended to every family served by our highly experienced directors. Now the oldest continuously family-owned-and-operated funeral service establishment in greater Fall River, Silva-Faria Funeral Home’s management continues in the hands of the great (great) grandchildren of "Tio Mariano," together with the Aguiar/Penacho family – providing at-need traditional and cremation services, as well as pre-arranged and pre-paid funeral planning where families are able to enjoy guaranteed price control for funeral home related costs.

Our History

It All Started with Our Great, Great, (Great) Grandfather

When eighteen-year-old Mariano J. Silva left his native village of Candelaria on the island of São Miguel, in the Açores, he had no trade or any idea of how he was going to support himself. Yet he was possessed with the pioneering spirit and determined to make his mark here in his adopted country.

The year was 1884 and the country was about to embark on the industrial revolution. After performing several menial jobs, he was hired as an insurance salesman for the Prudential Life Insurance Co. – a job which earned him the nickname of "Tio Mariano de Seguro."

As more and more immigrants arrived from the Azores, and deaths among the Portuguese were handled by “undertakers” who did not speak their language, he decided to enter the funeral industry.

To left: Silva Funeral Home at 730 Bedford Street in 1938 – with a 1932 Miller Meteor Hearse in front.

Above: Silva Funeral Home at 730 Bedford Street in 1938 – with a 1932 Miller Meteor Hearse in front.

Mariano on horseback leads

a society procession, 1910.

Since August of 1890 when he received his first call (the burial of a precious stillborn), Mariano’s business continued as a family operation to become the oldest Portuguese funeral establishment in America – a multigenerational labor of love in support of the bereaved.

There are stories of Mariano’s compassionate kind-heartedness that have passed down through the generations. Like when collecting weekly rents he once noticed a tenant’s child without shoes and decided to forgive the next week’s rent so long as by then there were “shoes on that kid’s feet.” Blessed with entrepreneurial resourcefulness, Mariano also made his own caskets using wood that his team of livery horses transported by sled from a lumber mill across the Mount Hope Bay when it would freeze over in the winter.

1939 Packard flower car post card

On the death of Mariano in 1934 the business was continued by his three sons (Manuel B. Silva, Anthony T. Silva, and Edward Mariano Silva [“Jr.”]) who expanded by opening funeral homes in Taunton, New Bedford and Fairhaven.

Eddy

(New Bedford, Fairhaven)

Manny

(Taunton)

Tony & John
(Fall River, Somerset)

Anthony was later joined by his son, Milton R. Silva (d. 2020), in operation of the Fall River branch; and by 1950 they opened the first licensed funeral home in Somerset.


With the untimely death of Anthony in 1955, Milton, who was admitted to practice law in 1952, ran both the local area family funeral firm and his law practice. He also found time for community and government service (assisting Portuguese families with their legal immigration process toward citizenship, serving as a 2-term Massachusetts legislator, and 8-year police commissioner, and participating in home placement for Brazilian exchange students for many years – to name a few). In 1970, just prior to Milton’s appointment as First Justice of Bristol County's Second District Court (Fall River), his eldest son, Paul, joined the business, taking the reins as president; and, shortly after, they acquired Faria & Son Funeral Home (whose founder had been associated with Mariano prior to establishing his own firm in 1916). Milton’s other sons also entered the family profession: Richard in 1975; and Martin in 1984.

Judge Milton R. Silva, with his sons, (left to right), Martin, Richard, and Paul, at a coveted award dinner held in Milton’s honor, at White’s of Westport, to celebrate his being declared Portuguese-American of the Year in 1985 by O’Jornal (a bilingual weekly newspaper paper, which served Southeastern New England for many years).

In 1985, the Somerset Chapel was greatly enlarged and redecorated to better serve the needs of a growing neighborhood. In 1992, the Fall River Chapel was also beautifully refurbished to include three sets of rest rooms, elevator access, and separate rooms for family to privately gather, if desired.


Both funeral homes, Somerset Chapel and Fall River Chapel, allow ample parking and have undergone extensive renovations meticulously planned to furnish a pleasant, consoling environment for conducting funerals. Even the casket display room, at our Fall River location, is specially designed to provide a variety of choices – yet, in a relaxed and unobtrusive atmosphere.


The success enjoyed with these expansion projects during this time was due in no small part to the efforts of our (now mostly retired) funeral director (Milton’s middle son) Richard H. Silva, whose innate attention to detail and self-taught / natural ability to understand construction, wiring, engineering, and architectural design made him a perfect candidate to supervise (in-house, as it were) all of our renovation projects over the years.


In addition to funeral directing, Milton’s youngest son, Martin A. Silva, also maintains a law practice (having attended law school nights for 5 years in the late 1990s to pass the bar in 1999). This provides an added-value benefit to all families we serve who might have legal questions, as he is often happy to answer all entry level legal concerns brought to his attention “with his funeral directing hat on” (i.e., without fee). Over the years, families we serve have come to appreciate the valuable information provided by Martin – advising as to possible court filing requirements at time of death (“de-mystifying probate”) and touching upon estate planning options during “pre-need” conferences.


Still at the helm (and the person with whom the “buck stops”), though semi-retired and predominantly paying the bills and keeping the books, Paul F. Silva as he continues to meet with many families “PreNeed” and to assist families at-need with ancillary issues, especially in claiming life insurance proceeds. His attention to detail and vast experience in the funeral industry makes him perfect as our administrative gatekeeper – making sure death records are accurately registered through the online system.


Paul’s decades of civic-minded involvement in the community also continues to be extensive, volunteering with Ser-Jobs, Prince Henry Society, and St. Anthony of Padua Federal Credit Union (where he remains its longtime chairman of the board).

Above is a high quality color-pencil rendition (drawn by local artist Chris Kadlec, who for a short time with us did portraiture of loved ones) of a 2006 photo taken at the Annual Silva Family “Portuguese Open” Golf Tournament that we ran for 35 years to benefit the Prince Henry Society – a non-profit, charitable organization dedicated to the future of Portuguese-America in their planning of various events which fund scholarships given to promising local area high school seniors of Portuguese descent who are pursuing higher education.

Milton’s granddaughter (Paul’s daughter), Amy L. Silva-Rigtrup, first of our fifth generation in funeral service, entered the family business in 2005 and brought the positive energy of youth, technology, and new ideas for personalizing memorials. In addition to awards she earned from her mortuary college, including recognition of her work in their intern program, she was a recipient in the 2015 Outstanding Women Award from New England Family Business Association. Remarkably, from January 2015 to October 2016, Amy hosted a weekly radio show, “The Silva Lining,” which addressed all topics related to funerals, death, and grief.


In 2017, Amy partnered with a well-established / well-loved couple in the funeral industry, Lawrence and Christine Quintal, to purchase Milton’s cousins’ funeral home in Taunton, at 80 Broadway. While Amy’s involvement at our firm in the Greate Fall River area has since diminished, she carries Mariano’s legacy through our Taunton family branch and continues to innovate her funeral care persona as the ‘FuneraLady.’


Years 2024 through 2026 brought an exciting development of expansion in our firm. Licensed funeral directors, Sierra Penacho and Michael Aguiar (Sierra’s father), proven invaluable employees, have purchased a minority interest in our funeral establishment.

Above are Father / Daughter Co-Owners, Michael Aguiar and Sierra Penacho and (at sides) participating in yearly feasts of St. Michael’s Church, Fall River

Above are Father / Daughter Co-Owners, Michael Aguiar and Sierra Penacho and (below) participating in yearly feasts of St. Michael’s Church, Fall River

Active parishioners of St. Michael Church, they are very well-known, especially Michael who is affectionately known as the unofficial “Mayor of the North End.” More importantly, Michael’s many years of experience in the local funeral industry (especially with Rogers Funereal Home for well over twenty years), together with the excellent skills he has developed in the art and science of embalming, bring significant comfort to the families we serve. Sierra’s natural care, compassion, and empathy, along with her MBA, and the new ideas of youth that she brings, serve her admirably to address all of our families’ concerns, as well. Her organizational skills provide insight by way of improving upon certain of our administrative protocols and especially benefit us well in her role as operations manager – having taken over that duty upon the retirement of our longtime funeral director, Paul St. Louis (see commemoration below). We are thus delighted in the confidence of knowing that our legacy of care and integrity are well secured into the future.


Notably, for many years now, the smooth running of our day-to-day operation is due in no small part to the consistently ever-present efforts of our longtime office manager, Kathi Grenn-Silva (Martin’s wife). With strong work ethic and effective communication skills, she often handles multiple in-coming calls (including important ‘first calls’ with care) and message-taking while simultaneously navigating the (sometimes complicated) online death registration system, as well as accomplishing all the case specific tasks of data-entry / recordkeeping essential for required forms printing and memorial/tribute processing.

Above: Office Manager Kathi Grenn-Silva (w/ husband, “Marty”) at a recent social event - friend’s (grand)baby shower [celebrating life in & out of the office!] …


Below is one of the murals of ceramic tile displayed at Fall River Chapel that was hand-painted (& kiln-fired) by Milton’s daughter, Ana

Memorial gratitude also goes out to other family members (deceased) who have also significantly contributed to the success of our family funeral service – namely, the Silva brothers’ mom (& Milton’s wife), Mary C. Silva (d. 2010), who ran the office and kept the books for many years prior to her retirement, and Ana M. Larrivee (d. 2014, late sister of the Silva brothers) who was our bookkeeper for many years and who adorned our funeral home with her artistic talents.



A Toast to Commemorate Paul St. Louis’ Retirement


Our Paul St. Louis, 40-year employee / embalmer / funeral director, now retired, is and always will be like family. In connection with a small, surprise retirement celebration at our 2025 Christmas party, Martin shared, in part, the following toast:

… Perfect for this business, Paul's affable nature and sociable personality has served him well as a genuinely likable and trustworthy funeral director, the goodwill engendered from which has benefited us greatly over the years. In addition to his exceptional embalming skills, Paul's personal traits of always being conscientious in his work, truly caring for others, ability to find livable solutions to unusual problems with a level head, and resourcefulness in effectively staffing all manner of operations (pulling from his many solid connections in the community), not to mention his ever present unique sense of humor, all have added positive impact to our reputation (by association) and have helped us thrive as leaders at what we do in funeral service, which is a true labor of love -- finding inner reward by having properly assisted grieving folk who suffer loss.

Milton Silva, once said of Paul St. Louis that he "did it right," by that he meant he was doing his life right -- marrying well, being a good husband, a good parent sacrificing to provide for his kids, working hard, keeping the faith, active in the church, being a loyal friend, and doing for others in need.


And as we wish for Paul a long, happy & healthy retirement, we can rest assured knowing that, however he continues to find fulfillment in life, he will "do it right."

We Endeavor to Continue to Serve our Grieving Families with the Utmost Care, Consideration, Respect, and Dignity – Well into the Future

Considered the oldest continuously family-owned-and-operated funeral service establishment in greater Fall River, Silva-Faria Funeral Home’s management continues in the capable hands of the great (great) grandchildren of "Tio Mariano," together with the Aguiar/Penacho family – providing at-need traditional and cremation services, as well as pre-arranged and pre-paid funeral planning (funded by specially designed funeral insurance products) where families are able to enjoy guaranteed price control for funeral home related costs. (See our FAQ page on PrePlanning.)


Striving to always provide compassionate understanding and guidance, we proudly sustain a heritage of dedicated service to the greater Fall River area since 1890, legacies of trust and personal integrity characterize the quality of care extended to every family served by our highly experienced directors.