Area Businesses Help Mourners Honor Princess

In a tender scene mirrored around the world, Rachel Beam walked into the hushed mortuary, approached the condolence book and wrote her deepest sorrows.

Like so many people, Beam is mourning Princess Diana’s recent death in a car crash. For reasons she cannot explain, she was touched by this woman she had never met--a mother, a humanitarian, a person who struggled.

“I just think that she was a people’s princess,” said Beam, a single mother of three from Simi Valley. “God, it makes me cry just to think about it. She did a lot for kids, and I have kids myself. She helped other people. No one told her to, she just took it upon herself.”

On Wednesday, Beam and dozens of other mourners filled the pages of a condolence book at Reardon Mortuary in Simi Valley. The company is also offering the same service at its Ventura branch, and two other Ventura mortuaries, Charles Carroll Funeral Home and the Ted Mayr Funeral Home, have their own condolence books.

After being inundated with telephone calls, the owners of Ojai’s Tottenham Court Tea Room also have made a guest book available.

All of them will be forwarded to the family of Princess Diana.

One Thousand Oaks pub announced that it will stay open all night Friday, so people can watch the funeral services live from England.

At Reardon’s, more than 20 people had signed the book by 11 a.m.

It was a solemn affair. The book sat on a lectern beside a spray of white roses and pink day lilies. Two white tapers flickered. A bulletin board showed magazine photographs of Diana.

The visitors were mostly women, some in shorts and T-shirts, others wearing blazers and pumps, with their children.

“Thank you Diana, for gracing the world with your great gifts of tolerance, compassion and love of humanity,” read one entry. “You will always be my hero,” another said. One writer, displaying a child’s tentative scrawl, stated, “I know what it feels like to lose somebody special. My dad died.”

Many entries--such as Moorpark resident Mary Jane Curry’s--were addressed to Diana’s two sons, Princes William and Harry.

“I just told them that their mother loved them deeply, and that she loved all of humanity,” said Curry, a mother of two. “And that she would want them to keep her teachings of love and kindness present in their lives.”

The condolence book will remain at the Reardon mortuaries until 5 p.m. today. The other guest books are available for the next few days.

In Thousand Oaks, mourners will be able to pay respects to Diana at the Crown and Anchor Pub, which will stay open Friday night into Saturday so grieving patrons can watch a live broadcast of her funeral in downtown London. The services are scheduled for about 3 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.

“This has hit everyone pretty hard,” said pub proprietor and English native Gerald Peel. “We just wanted to be open so people would be able to pay their last respects to her.”