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As Era Ends, Another Begins For Tampa Funeral Home

Tribune photo by KATHY STEELE

The old Adams & Jennings Funeral Home, 6900 Nebraska Ave., was razed to rubble and dust.

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By KATHY STEELE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 12, 2009

TAMPA - It is a passing away of sorts.

An iconic funeral home with roots going back more than 50 years met its fate today.

Owner Mike Adams held back a few tears as he watched the old Adams & Jennings Funeral Home, 6900 Nebraska Ave., razed to rubble and dust. But as one era ends, a new one begins.

Next door is a modernized and bigger funeral home. The old home will become a parking lot for the new.

"It's a part of my life," Adams said. "I have lived there more than at home."

The funeral home's history began with Edward Jennings, who lived and operated his business from a two-story house at Sligh and Nebraska avenues, where today there is a BP gas station.

His niece Donna Mitchell said the family lived upstairs; the funeral business was conducted on the first floor.

"It's part of history coming down," said Mitchell, who worked briefly as a bookkeeper for Adams & Jennings. The Land O' Lakes resident graduated from Hillsborough High School and often visited her uncle and aunt, Eleanor Jennings, at the funeral home.

None of the couple's children wanted to take over the business when their father died, Mitchell said.

The name was changed to Adams & Jennings Funeral Home in 1997. Adams had worked for Jennings for more than 30 years and by then the business had moved across the street from the two-story house.

When Jennings moved his business he bought an A-frame structure that over the years was an antique shop and teahouse. A chapel was built in the rear in the mid-1960s.

The original A-frame owner had placed a white porcelain cat on the roof, reportedly because his wife was fond of cats.

There it remained for decades, removed only once for a re-roofing.

"Everyone cared about the cat so much," Adams said. "That was the first thing we got off the roof before we started."

Callers and passers-by have had one question on their minds: What's happening with the cat?

"It's under lock and key in our new funeral home," general manager A.J. Russo said.

Plans call for a grand opening and a ceremony within the next weeks to place the cat on the cupola of the new funeral home.

Reporter Kathy Steele can be reached at (813) 259-7652 or ksteele@tampatrib.com.

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