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When 10-year-old Larry Panozzo started helping out at his family’s funeral business, he’d cart portable kneelers and chairs into customer’s homes because that’s where wakes often were held.
He went on to be one of the longest-serving funeral directors in Illinois.
Mr. Panozzo, a member of the second generation to operate 95-year-old Panozzo Brothers Funeral Home, died of heart trouble April 22 at his home in Flossmoor, according to his son Michael Panozzo. He was 91.
Licensed for 67 years, he had retired only in February.
Panozzo Brothers, founded in Roseland, is the sort of funeral home where it can take a long time to get through the line of people waiting to pay their respects. It’s a repository of memories for generations of families, particularly Italian Americans with ties to St. Anthony of Padua parish at 115th Street and Prairie Avenue.