Thompson happy with look of his funeral home

For the past 25 years, the W.C. Thompson Funeral Home stood modestly tucked between a car dealership and an office building and was easy to miss when riding by on North Main Street.

But with recently added new siding, windows, lighting, doors and a fancy new sign, the building is hard not to notice these days.

The Culpeper County Chamber of Commerce noticed, naming W.C. Thompson Funeral Home the Most Improved Small Business Location at its annual awards ceremony Nov. 1.

Owner Wilbur Thompson, who opened the business at 503 N. Main St. in 1982, said he's been getting lots of compliments about the new look.

"I'm telling you, plenty of them, calls too," he said. "With the front done, I was not surprised (about the chamber award). I expected it. I was just happy to get it looking good."

Thompson, 76, doesn't own the building in which he's done business for two-plus decades, and was a bit confused when the chamber gave him credit for the improvements. But considering his long and storied place in local history, the deep-voiced funeral services director deserves the attention.

Born and raised in Remington in Fauquier County, Thompson attended public school at a time when black children were segregated from white children. After graduating from the former Rosenwald High School in Warrenton, he took off for West Virginia and ministerial studies.

"That was my mother and dad's idea," said Thompson.
After about two years, he decided that a ministerial career was not for him and that's when Thompson turned to a career caring for those who have already left this earth. He earned his training at Eckles College of Mortuary Science in Philadelphia and learned of an opening at Mortimer Marshall's Funeral Service, formerly located on East Davis Street in Culpeper.

The year was 1951 and by that time, Thompson had already worked a brief stint as a mail carrier and had also spent some time cutting hair in a barbershop next to Antioch Baptist Church on West Street - "We were known as the flat top barbers," he said.

But how did Thompson get interested in funeral services-
"It was my grandmother," he said. "She used to stay with my mother in Remington and was 94-years-old when she passed."
But when Thompson saw his grandmother in the coffin at the funeral he didn't think proper care had been taken.

"When they fixed her up, I didn't like the looks. That made me more interested to want to get into this business to be able to improve on it," he said.

Thompson worked with Mortimer Marshall for more than 30 years until he died and that's when he went out on his own.

Still, Thompson said, he never really dreamed of opening his own funeral parlor and was perfectly happy working with Mr. Marshall.

"I'll tell you one thing, he was hard on me, but I loved it. I wish he were still living," Thompson said. "I was very satisfied there. He was a man I could get along with: conservative-type, not showing off or nothing, but he'd tell you what he thinks. I don't think I got any of that," Thompson added, laughing.

When he started looking for a place to open his business, the North Main Street building had been vacant for years and was in dire need of interior repairs. But through a unique and somewhat guarded arrangement, Thompson's younger sister purchased the structure and he's been renting it from her since.

According to his sister, who did not want her name in the newspaper, the building was built in 1929 as a feed store. She had hoped to do the rehab sooner, during the downtown renaissance of the '90s, but the government-sponsored program of low-interest loans and grants ended one street short of the funeral home, she said.

But Thompson's sister, 73, recently invested nearly $100,000 to reface the aging building and it's now lined with hurricane-proof, fiber cement siding, she said proudly during a recent phone interview. Carter Kehoe Construction of Bealeton did the work and there's more to come on the inside.

"We came a long way," she said.

Thompson likes the improvements all right except for the fancy new shaded glass on the front doors which keeps him from seeing out onto Main Street and waving at everybody who passes.

Anyone who's been in Culpeper any amount of time knows Mr. Thompson and he makes it a point to know them.

"To me, I've got friends both white and black - that's the reason I been around so long," he said. "Like I said the other night, I can certainly thank Culpeper and the surrounding counties for being good to me, first thing goes for the funeral home, but I had good support even in the barber business. People have been good to me."

He added, "I can still cut hair, you know."

Allison Brophy Champion can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 101 or