Former Rehoboth Beach Commissioner Jack Salin died Wednesday, Nov. 4, at his residence in Whiting, N.J. He was 96. A memorial service has been scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8, at Parsell Funeral Home in Lewes. Visitation with the family will begin at 1 p.m.
“He was a Rehoboth Beach icon in my view,” said Mayor Sam Cooper. “The stories he told about being a kid in Rehoboth were always fascinating to me. He and his wife both grew up in Rehoboth and eventually built and lived in a house on property her family owned at the corner of Pennsylvania and Second Street.”
According to his son, Charles, Salin’s family moved to Rehoboth Beach full time in the 1920s when his father was a young boy. “He was a University of Delaware graduate and an electrical engineer. He spent a lot of time in Washington, D.C. and Rehoboth. He went into the Navy in World War II as a second lieutenant and worked on radar development. After the war he continued his career as an engineer.”
Salin had an avid interest in Rehoboth Beach history. “He and Warren McDonald – another great guy with deep interest in Rehoboth history – served as commissioners at the same time,” said Cooper. “One of the big issues for them involved the new replica of the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse, constructed in the roundabout at Rehoboth Avenue as part of the streetscape project. I can remember them going back and forth at several meetings on the shape and design of the lower windows of the lighthouse. Warren felt it was important that the windows in the new replica be the same as the windows that were in the original replica. Jack researched the original lighthouse and felt that the new replica should have windows exactly as they were in the original lighthouse, which was a little different than in the first replica. Jack Salin won out on that one. He was heavily involved in the whole design and construction of the new lighthouse and took a lot of pride in it.”
Cooper said he was disappointed when the former commissioner, as he aged, had to move from Rehoboth to be closer to family in New Jersey. “He grew up in Rehoboth and then left to pursue his career. Then he retired and finally got back to this town he loved, only to leave again. It kind of made me said. Now I guess he’s coming home to stay.”
Salin will be buried in Rehoboth’s Epworth Cemetery on Henlopen Avenue.
A more detailed obituary about Jack Salin’s life will appear in the Tuesday, Nov. 10 edition of the Cape Gazette.
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