David Charles Pasco
Submitted photo
GREENFIELD — Dave Pasco passed away Dec. 21 at the age of 76.
He was the last remaining member of the family that operated Pasco Memorial Mortuary in Greenfield for four generations.
“When you lived in Greenfield and had a loved one pass away, you went to Pasco’s,” said Michael Kester, president and curator of the Hancock County Historical Society.
The Pascos were well known throughout Hancock County, dating back to 1912 when Dave Pasco’s grandfather — C.F. Chancy Pasco — first opened a funeral home in a storefront along Main Street in Greenfield.
The son of a funeral director named Algernon, Chancy assisted with James Whitcomb Riley’s funeral in 1916.
In the mid-1920s, he moved the funeral business to a stately white home in Greenfield, at 312 E. Main Street. As the county grew, so did the funeral home, with additions in the 1940s and 1980s.
The Pasco family grew as well, with Chancy’s son Charles eventually taking over the business before handing it over to his sons, Richard “Dick” Pasco and his brother, Dave.
In 1999, the brothers relocated the funeral home to a new one-story facility on the west side of Greenfield, at 1780 W. Main St.
Kester — who went to high school with the Pasco siblings in the early 1960s — said both brothers and their sister, Salli Pasco Williams, were well-liked and active in the community.
Richard Pasco was elected as Greenfield’s mayor in 2011, but died of liver cancer in December 2013. He was a five-term City Council member, Kiwanis lieutenant state governor, and charter president of Independent Funeral Directors of Indiana, and served three years during the Vietnam War in the U.S. Navy.
Salli Pasco Williams, like Dave, was a longtime member of the Hancock County Historical Society, and was board secretary when she passed away in June 2021.She was a member of Hancock County Art Educators, Delta Kappa Gamma, and Tri Kappa, but was best known for her lifelong dedication to the Girl Scouts. The longtime camp director received numerous awards over the years, but was most proud of receiving the prestigious Anna M. Ridge Award, given to a person who has had the most profound impact in the lives of Girl Scouts.
Kester said the loss of such a community-minded family like the Pasco siblings is a big loss for Hancock County.
“They were the trifecta in Greenfield, then all of a sudden it was like ‘bing bang boom,’ all three of them were gone,” said Kester.
The siblings were accomplished and active in high school, he said, and continued to achieve personal success throughout their lives.
As a boy, Kester remembers attending visitations in the Pasco funeral home, located at 312 E. Main St. in downtown Greenfield. The stately white home — which Kester said first belonged to the local druggist — boasted tall 10-foot ceilings and ornate furnishings.
The historian got the chance to learn more about the family’s history through Dave Pasco before he passed away.
The Hancock County Historical Society planned to do an exhibit on the funeral homes of Hancock County throughout the years, and Pasco did some interviews with Kester.
Pasco also helped Kester obtain a set of large painted portraits of Pasco family members, which for years were hanging in the halls of the community foundation office. The framed oil paintings were donated to the local historic society, which has them on permanent display in Greenfield’s Chapel in the Park, which is home to the local history museum.
In addition to the portraits, Kester said the historical society has a collection of articles dating back to the 1890s documenting the Pasco family’s impact in the community.
“They were an important part of Hancock County’s history, and now all their prominent elders are gone,” he said.
Kester said Dave Pasco and his siblings were prominent local citizens and active volunteers, serving on a number of different boards and clubs.
“They really meshed with the community,” said Kester, who can attest to the fact that the community held the Pascos in high regard.
“There’s nothing more important than a funeral director who is in charge of handling the deceased — making sure everything goes beautifully and wonderfully as your loved ones are laid to rest — and the Pascos were very good at that,” he said. “They knew the people coming through the door were friends and neighbors.”
Kester said the Pasco family entered in the funeral home business just as the industry was taking off, as more and more people were turning toward holding visitations and services in funeral homes rather than in people’s homes — as had been the tradition for decades.
“When you needed a funeral home in Greenfield, Pasco’s is where you went,” he said.
“The Pasco name is just synonymous with a local small-town funeral home that was run by the local boys, so to speak, and those boys changed over time, from Algernon to Chauncey (Charles) and his two sons,” Kester recalled.
In 2001, the Pasco family decided to sell their funeral business to Stillinger Family Funeral Home, which retained the family’s name at its funeral home in Greenfield, which is now known as Stillinger Family Funeral Home-Pasco Chapel.
After selling the business, the Pascos donated their former funeral home to the Hancock County Community Foundation, which has had its offices there ever since.
The foundation plans to move to a new location in 2023, however, and has donated the building for use as a nonprofit collaborative called the Circle of Care.
Kester thinks Dave Pasco would be proud to see how his family’s former funeral home is being repurposed to continue serving the community in yet another way.
According to his obituary, Dave Pasco was survived by his wife, Janice, and “his beloved schnauzer son, Mr. Higgins.”
The Greenfield High School graduate earned degrees from Ohio State University, Ball State University and the Indiana College of Mortuary Science before serving a year with the U.S. Army in Vietnam. Seven years later, he was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army Reserve.
An active community servant, Pasco was a member of the Greenfield Veterans Honor Guard, American Legion Post #119, V.F.W. Post #2693, Greenfield Sertoma Club, Hancock Masonic Lodge, Greenfield York Rite, Indianapolis Scottish Rite and Murat Shrine Club.
He was also a former board member for Greenfield Revitalization and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Hancock County, and was proud to help bring the Vietnam Veterans Memorial — the “Wall that Heals” — to Greenfield in 2005.
Pasco served on Greenfield Banking Company’s board of directors for 22 years, retiring in 2018.
He died just six days after fellow longtime board member Tom Cone, who served for nearly 50 years. The two men both retired from the board the same year.
Bank president John Kennedy remembers Pasco as an intelligent businessman with a keen sense of humor.
“He was just a very impressive guy who could integrate humor at the toughest times, even with the most complex business issues we might have had, and he always had a smile,” said Kennedy.
“I liked Dave a lot. He was a really neat guy.”
A funeral visitation for Pasco was held Dec. 29 at the local funeral home that still bears his family name — Stillinger Family Funeral Home-Pasco Chapel — where the Honor Guard and American Legion each held ceremonies to honor him.
