Robert Wayne Gendron, Bud to his family and to a town’s worth of friends, died on Saturday, October 31, 2026. He was 71. His family’s own announcement promises to keep repeating his dad jokes, which they rated as terrible, for the rest of their lives.
He was born in Lynn on August 29, 1955, the oldest of three sons of Robert “Bud” and Dorothy (Langis) Gendron, and grew up in Swampscott, graduating from Swampscott High School in 1973. He played baseball from Little League through Babe Ruth, then semi-professional football in East Boston and league hockey after high school, and for years played softball, for a time on a team with both of his brothers. He was active for a number of years in the Swampscott Knights of Columbus.
He raised two daughters in Swampscott and threw himself into whatever they did, coaching softball for many of the town’s girls and, when the girls took up competitive cheer, learning to do competition hair and a fair share of the choreography. He worked as an insurance appraiser, and in his last years he gave his time to St. John the Evangelist Church in Swampscott, where he was at Mass every Sunday morning.
He was a Topsfield Fair volunteer, a John Wayne fan who watched the films at full volume, a regular at Disney World, concerts, musicals and plays, and, with his grandchildren, a collector of shells at the Salem Willows. He wore bright clothes, a plum shirt above all. He was reliably two hours late to family game night. He talked to everyone, and he ran into someone he knew wherever he went, including, once, Canada.
He leaves his daughters, Alyssa Fields and her husband Erik of Sarasota, Florida, and Traci Gendron and her partner Alex Johnson of Romulus, Michigan; his grandchildren Gavin, Kaia and Trevor Fields; his brothers Dan and his wife Marianne of Londonderry, New Hampshire, and Tim of Swampscott; his nieces Kristen D’Entremont and Jamie Gendron and nephews Daniel and Talon Gendron; and his lifelong friends Billy Poulos and Mike Barbuzzi and their wives, Donna and Karen, who were family in all but name. His parents died before him.
Visitation is Sunday, November 8 from 2 to 6 p.m. at the Solimine Funeral Home, 67 Ocean Street, Lynn. The funeral is Monday, November 9, which was his mother’s birthday, at 10 a.m. at St. John the Evangelist Church in Swampscott, followed by burial in Swampscott Cemetery.
Compiled from information published by Solimine Funeral Homes. Photograph courtesy of the family via Solimine Funeral Homes. This is our own summary, not the family’s obituary; read the full obituary and leave a condolence at the funeral home’s page on Legacy.com. Corrections: we will fix any error promptly.
