C. Lewis Edwards; Ex-Mayor of Pasadena, Civic Leader

C. Lewis Edwards, former Pasadena mayor and president of its Tournament of Roses, has died. He was 94.

Edwards died Tuesday in Pasadena, said his daughter, Sharon Girdner.

The son of an early Pasadena merchant, Edwards spent his entire life in his native city. His vocation was mortician and his avocation civic leader.

He served five years on the city’s Planning Commission and was elected to the Board of City Directors, equivalent to a city council, for 12 years. He was mayor from 1962 to 1963.

Edwards had a long history with Pasadena’s more than century-old Rose Parade, which attracts sidewalk and television viewers every New Year’s Day. He remembered watching flower-decorated horses and buggies move along Fair Oaks Avenue when he was a 5-year-old.

He first rode in the parade in 1918 as a Boy Scout driving a flower-bedecked car for the American Red Cross. He rode along more grandly in 1962 and 1963 as the city’s mayor.

In 1969, Edwards made a fourth parade appearance as president of the Tournament of Roses. He began working in the volunteer organization in 1937 and rose through its ranks to the presidency.

During his tenure, he expanded the rose queen contest beyond the campus of Pasadena City College, attracting a record 478 participants.

As for his profession, Edwards decided in childhood to become a mortician. When any pet cat or bird died, he was the child ready with a box to bury it and conduct a funeral.

For more than six decades, Edwards buried Pasadena’s citizens, including a couple of generals, an admiral, dozens of millionaires and ordinary folks including many close friends. He endured undertaker jokes as well as grief and never once regretted his choice of occupation.

“I feel I’m helping people when they can’t help themselves,” he told the Pasadena Star-News in 1979.

Edwards became a licensed embalmer after studying at the California College of Mortuary Science and served two terms as president of the California State Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers.

Widowed by his wife of 48 years, high school principal Gladys Edwards, he is survived by his daughter, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Memorial services are scheduled for 11 a.m. March 20, at Turner & Stevens/C. Lewis Edwards Funeral Home, 825 E. Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena.

The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the Salvation Army, 960 E. Walnut St., Pasadena, CA 91106, or the Los Angeles Alzheimer’s Assn., 5900 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 1710, Los Angeles, CA 90036.