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ABOUT US

About Us

Welcome to MacKinnon Funeral Home

MacKinnon Funeral Home was the former residence of Cardinal Francis Spellman.

This beautiful 18 room house located at 760 Washington Street, Whitman was built by the late Francis Cardinal Spellman in 1934. Spellman built the house for his parents in 1933 and 1934 when he was the auxiliary bishop of Boston.


The brick Tudor style house which is patterned after homes the cardinal visited while in Europe, sits on 1.45 acres of land and has 18 rooms, 7 baths, and a former built in pool with pool house and a two car garage. A red upholstered chair on which the Cardinal used to sit is on display beneath a framed picture in one of the sitting rooms. His miter - a hat with peaks worn by bishops and cardinals - is also at the funeral home.


In 1936, while still a bishop, Cardinal Spellman made several visits to the house and was

accompanied by Italian Cardinal Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII.


The House remained in the Spellman family until after his death, passing from Marian Pegnam (the cardinal's sister) to her daughter Frances McCarthy. In 1974 the house was purchased by Mr. Robert Johnston of Johnston Funeral Home, and then to Paul O'Connor of the John J. O'Connor & Son Funeral Home in 1993. Richard D. MacKinnon, Sr. managed the funeral home under O'Connor and later purchased the home in 1999.


The MacKinnon Family ran and operated the funeral home from 1993 until 2023 when the funeral home was acquired by Garret McDonald, a 5th generation funeral director from Weymouth.


Online Memorial

We can create a customized, online memorial for you to share with family and friends. The memorial includes the obituary and any photographs you wish to provide. It will serve as a place for visitors to post condolences, share memories, upload photos, and light candles in honor of your loved one.

Tribute Video

We can produce a personal tribute video that can be played at the service and online. Simply provide us with the photographs you want to include and we will transform them into a video celebration of your treasured memories. DVDs or digital files of the video are also available.

Ordering Flowers

We make it easy for friends and family to send flowers to your home or service to honor your loved one. We have partnered with local florists to offer the convenience of ordering directly from the obituary page of our website. You can also use this feature to select the flowers you would like at the service. This is a secure way to choose beautiful arrangements from the privacy and comfort of your home.

Sharing Service Details

We reduce the stress of contacting those who need the details of the service for your loved one. We post the dates and times of the service as part of the online memorial on our website. You can then either share the memorial on your Facebook or Twitter page or copy the details from the site into an email or text. Both options give you the peace of mind that you have provided the necessary information to those who need it.

Daily Grief Steps Emails

We offer one year of free daily grief support emails to the families we serve. It is important to us that we continue to comfort our families through the difficult days that the first year of grieving can bring.

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