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When DH died I wrote an obituary for the closest big-city paper. It ran something like $425 for 200 words. Darn good thing I didn't add a picture! He was a journalism major and would have wanted it; his friends were in the area and around the same age (78) and I knew they'd appreciate it. I also sent a copy of the paper to his brother, who hadn't been able to make it here from California.
I was mildly disgruntled when the local freebie paper picked it up; I suppose they had an agreement with Big City Paper that they could publish obits for anyone from our town. I guess I felt like I write it, I paid for it and they got to use it.
When my Ex died he was penniless but there was a tiny item in the paper in the state where he died so maybe some states do require it. When Mom died, Dad chose a very brief obituary in the local paper but included the name of the funeral home. The funeral home published a much longer obituary on their site as part of their services. I gave the local funeral home the full text of DH's obituary for their site and included a picture of him drinking the local beer in Reykjavik.
No charge for obit here, but opted not to have one for my DH. Family and friends were called; everyone else, who cares? No need for others to know my business.
That too. My dad died in 1981, and it was a big funeral. And what people did back then, is they had a big spread laid out at the house afterwards. But one or two people from the church, or friends of the family, stayed behind at the house.
Because the time of the funeral and the burial was laid out in the obituary, it wasn’t uncommon to have house break ins when everybody was at the funeral. So the old hometown solution was somebody stayed in the house during the funeral.
What is interesting is if you look through older newspapers the obituaries were much more to the point than some more recent ones. "Mr. Fred Smith, of Farmtown, died on March 15th, 1941. Survivors are his wife, Bertha of the home and son Billy of Silo. The funeral will take place at Union Church at 2 PM on March 21st."
Many times, findagrave.com has obituaries or mini-obituaries. However, someone has to add them to the memorial page of the deceased. Often, users can upload photographs and sometimes, it is a scan/photo of a newspaper obit. No charge to read, or research. It's a good site for genealogical research.
Yes, I was just looking at my father's findagrave.com entry a few days ago.
No mention of his first or second wives, only the third one (the drunk). No mention that he had two children with the second wife. Not really a surprise as he went to great lengths to avoid having anything to do with his children.
But I'm sure the entry was the doing of the drunk's adult children. No mention that she drank herself to death: internal bleeding from alcoholism. Wouldn't want to admit that.
My husband and I want inexpensive cremation and no obituaries. We've left explicit instructions for those we leave behind, and they are well aware we don't want the funeral industry or anyone else making money from our passing.
However, when I was growing up, our local newspaper had a section where they published all public information from the courthouse. Birth certificates, death certificates, marriage licenses, and divorce filings. Oh, and real estate transactions.
A publication could still possibly get away with publishing what I've listed above, I don't know. But this paper also published the names of who was admitted and who was discharged from the local hospitals. That definitely wouldn't be allowed today.
I remember my grandparents wakes when I was little. They were two days, from 2-4 and 7-9. The funeral was in church, then the cemetary......then we all would go to a restaurant, have brunch.....with drinks of course. Back then I think funerals cost just as much as weddings.
What is interesting is if you look through older newspapers the obituaries were much more to the point than some more recent ones. "Mr. Fred Smith, of Farmtown, died on March 15th, 1941. Survivors are his wife, Bertha of the home and son Billy of Silo. The funeral will take place at Union Church at 2 PM on March 21st."
The "Not so humble" obits! We see some here in the Chicago area that are doozies.
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Solly says — Be nice!
But for some people, it's like that competitiveness even follows them in death in their obituary.
Huh ?
