Given that there are relatively few reviews for Brown's Funeral Home, I thought I'd offer a fuller review.
My family first used Brown's in 2015 when our mother died. We selected Brown's based on the recommendation from a pastor at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center, who spoke favorably about their service and reasonable pricing. Brown's came through for us. While the services they provided were straightforward (cremation and obtaining death certificates without any hosting any memorial service), they did their job with care and compassion and at a reasonable cost.
Pleased with their prior service, my family used Brown's again in 2019 when our father died. While I hadn't been present in 2016 when Brown's had taken possession of my mother's body from the hospital, my sister and I were present in 2019 when Brown's took possession of my father's body from Ray Hickey Hospice House (which BTW is an excellent hospice that I highly recommend). Ron Brown, the owner, and Gretel, his assistant, did a stellar job of performing this seemingly simple service. Ron and Gretel began by offering their words of sympathy to my sister and me. Since Dad was a veteran, Ron draped my father's body with a custom quilt that Ron had made for the funeral home that shows the symbols of branches of the nation's military. At the Hickey House, the staff has a tradition of lining up at the front door when a body of a resident is taken away. When we passed through the lines of staff at the front door and arrived at Brown's hearse, Ron, as is his custom, paused and offered a short expression of thanks on behalf of our family and his funeral home to the assembled staff for their care of our father. The words and the sentiment were sincere and hit the mark.
Again Brown's did an excellent job with arranging the cremation and obtaining death certificates. Beyond that, they helped out later in other ways. Our parents wished their ashes to be co-mingled in one urn, which Ron easily arranged. When it came time to transport our parents' ashes to another state to be interred, Ron offered to arrange the transport and when we decided that my sister would carry the urn with her, Ron (without any cost to us) prepared a 'To whom it may concern" letter to the T.S.A. for my sister to carry, attaching the death certificates and documenting that the urn contained our parents' cremains.
I note that a couple of reviews from a few years ago noted some shortcomings in Brown's service. I can only say that we did not experience anything like this ourselves.
One of the prior reviews mentioned that Brown's owner only wanted to talk about himself. While I wouldn't put it that way myself, I understand the point since Ron did talk a good bit about himself, including his father, his own health issue and a dispute with a son, on the occasions when I've met with him at his funeral home. For better or worse, if and when you select Brown's, you're choosing an old-time small-town family-owned funeral home rather than a corporate funeral home that's very likely part of a regional or national chain where you're dealing with an employee rather than the owner. As for myself, I happen to prefer the personal service that Ron offers.
I should also note that, unlike experiences some people have with other funeral homes, at no time whatsoever did I feel in any way whatsoever that Ron was pushing to "upgrade" any service at a higher profit to him and a higher cost to our family. When it came to selecting the services and related materials like the urn, Ron simply laid out the options and the pricing and did not push in any way. And the prices that Ron quoted were quite reasonable.
Brown's originally came recommended to us in 2015 as a good local funeral home that provided caring service at a reasonable price. Having chosen to use Brown's twice, I'd say that this recommendation to us has proven spot on and I pass along the same recommendation to you. read more