Bebe G. Adams

Bebe Gwin Adams 

Age 91, passed away peacefully in Oakmont, PA, with family by her side on Friday, October 4, 2024. Bebe was born in Gadsden, Alabama on September 8, 1933, the daughter of the late Fred and Buena Vista Gwin. She grew up in Gadsden and Mobile and later attended Randolph-Macon College and the University of Alabama.

Her first marriage took her from Alabama to New York City and then Chatham, New Jersey where she began to raise her four children. In 1969 she married her beloved husband and devoted companion for life, Wesley C. Adams, a joyous event that brought her three welcomed step-children and a bustling, blended and loving home of ten (including her mother) on Dorseyville Road in Fox Chapel, PA.  She and Wes resided in Fox Chapel for 20 years, spending ten years in Wilmington and Highlands, NC following Wes’ retirement, before returning to the Pittsburgh area. Bebe was a long-standing member of Fox Chapel Episcopal Church, now Christ Church, where she became the first female Senior Warden, a Eucharistic Minister and served for decades on the Altar Guild.

A fixture in the community, she served with the Junior League of Pittsburgh, Meals on Wheels, Contact, the crisis suicide hotline and spent too many hours to count cuddling preemies at St. Margaret’s. An avid tennis and paddle tennis player in her younger years, she and Wes were long time members of the Fox Chapel Golf Club where she took up golf late in life, never tiring of reminding Wes and her golfing sons that she was the only one in the family with a hole in one.

There was no such thing as a stranger to Bebe.  She could strike up a conversation with anyone and delighted in entertaining, especially at her legendary annual Christmas parties. Her children recall many holiday dinners where she would have four ovens and two stove tops going at once, every dish somehow arriving on an immaculately set table piping hot at the same time.  Family weddings were her special forte, commanding her charges into each requisite task with such alacrity that she earned the family nickname of “Sarge”. Bebe spent her later years traveling the world with Wes, gathering a whole new group of friends on a variety of Seabourne cruises.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Wesley C. Adams, daughter Dr. Patricia Gwin Rice, sister Dr. Gerre Gwin Price and stepsons Brian Clifton Adams and Scott Matthew Adams.  Bebe leaves behind an abundance of cherished memories to those who survive her: children Gary S. Rice (Rebecca), Louis Gregory Rice (Melissa), R. Matthew Rice, step-daughter Julie Adams-Boyd (Bob), daughter-in-law Thea Adams in addition to her grandchildren Louis Connor Rice, Annabel Gwin Rice, Hannah Beth Rice, Louis Crawford Rice, Emily Lynn Rice, John Wesley Adams (Nancy), Clifton Scott Adams and great grand daughter Matilda Skye Adams-Davila. The family wishes to extend their grateful appreciation to Diane Gerlach and Jill and Bryan Ergler, Bebe’s devoted friends, who provided so much comfort and companionship over the last several years. 

A celebration of life will be held on Saturday, October 26, at 3PM at Christ Church Fox Chapel, 410 Christ Church Lane, Pittsburgh, PA 15238.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations in her memory be made to Christ Church Fox Chapel.

Funeral arrangements are by the Weddell-Ajak Funeral Home, Aspinwall.

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