Our History

Five Generations Of Boston Funeral Directors

Morris William Brezniak (1917-1998)

Morris was born in Boston’s West End and worked for his father at Goldstein’s Moving and Storage Company, a very successful company serving the Jewish community. Goldstein’s moved families from the West and North End of Boston to the Jewish suburbs of Dorchester, and then to Mattapan, Newton, and Brookline.

In 1942 Morris married Beatrice Levine, grandaughter of Jacob H. Levine, founder of The Levine Chapel and daughter of Henry Levine. Morris had every intention of continuing in his father’s business, but on the fateful evening of November 28, 1942, tragedy struck Boston when the infamous Coconut Grove Fire claimed 492 lives. Morris was recruited by his father-in-law to help remove bodies from the Boston City Morgue. While he never talked about that experience, from that point on Morris felt a calling to help people at their most difficult time. He attended mortuary school and joined the family business upon his graduation in 1950, ultimately serving as President of The Levine Chapels.

Morris was very well respected in the Jewish community for his adherence to Jewish traditional funeral practices and the establishment of the first mikvah for the performing of Taharah (ritual washing) in the United States outside of New York. He also served as a mentor to many young funeral directors through the years.

Morris’s son David Brezniak received his funeral director’s license in 1967 and served as Vice-President of Levine Chapel until 1989 when the Brezniak family sold their interest in Levine. David founded Brezniak-Rodman Funeral Directors in West Newton in 1992, where the father and son worked together until Morris’s death in 1998. In 2017, David’s daughter Marcy joined the team as a funeral apprentice, becoming Director of Operations in 2020.