Known for her flamboyant hats and dazzling jewelry, Bernice Woods relished being in the public eye.
So when the longtime community volunteer and former Compton city councilwoman died last month, her children opted to place her open casket in the drive-thru display window of Robert L. Adams Mortuary in Compton.
“My mother was a community person,” said Gregory W. Woods, 55, the youngest of the deceased woman’s 10 children. “She meant so much to so many people. It is only fitting and proper that she would be viewed this way.”
Adams funeral parlor, a fixture in Compton since 1974, brings to the business of death a convenience of the living: drive-thru viewing of the dead.
Visitors are greeted by a huge red-lettered sign above the entrance of the stone building on East Palmer Street. In the reception lounge, gold chandeliers dangle so low that tall visitors have to duck. Plastic swathes the pink upholstered seats.
And off to the side of the main double doors is the covered and paved 12-foot wide drive-thru, its long glass display window visible from the street.
A handful of drive-thru funeral parlors are known to operate throughout the nation. There’s at least one in Chicago, another in Louisiana. But Adams is believed to be the only one in Southern California, according to owner Peggy Scott Adams.
“It’s a unique feature that sets us aside from other funeral parlors,” said Scott Adams. She married into the business in 1988 when she became wife to businessman Robert Lee Adams Sr., a former Compton politician. He died in 2005. She continued his legacy. A suit-clad bust made in his image stands near the entrance.
“You can come by after work, you don’t need to deal with parking, you can sign the book outside and the family knows that you paid your respects,” said Scott Adams. “It’s a convenience thing.”
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