JAWM--Cheap obituaries

[AnnE-girl]

This is somewhat petty, I'm annoyed. My grandma's brother was with his "lady friend" for at least thirty years. It was sort of assumed by the family that they didn't marry because she would have lost her late husband's pension. But they lived together for as long as I can remember. My uncle passed away in the last year and she died last week. I just looked up her obituary online. It's basic information about the service, including that her sort of ordained son is officiating, and that she was the wife of the late "first husband name." There's nothing about her other kids or the man who was her partner for the last thirty years.

 

I know it's not any of my business really, but it makes me sad. She adored my uncle, and they had a fairly long life together.

 

Anyway, JAWM. I might delete this later.

[Lady Florida.]

That is sad. It would have been nice for the family to add something like "companion to ______ for 30 years." I'm sorry.  :(

Edited September 27, 2016 by Lady Florida.

[Ravin]

Did her kids not like your uncle or something?

 

It is sad.

[Spryte]

I'm so sorry.  That's hurtful.

[Farrar]

This is why people should write their obituaries before they die. Seriously, anyone who's getting on in years or who has a chronic condition that might worsen or who becomes sick with cancer or another disease likely to take their life should outline what they want in there. And what goes on the gravestone if there's going to be one, and what music to play at the funeral, and what sort of clothes they want to wear and so on and so on. Because otherwise, people get hurt or just go crazy trying to figure this stuff out. Of course, sometimes someone wants people closed out of their obits or something, but at least then you got the mistake of the deceased, not the mistake of the overwrought son who can't remember the longtime partner's surname or has had an ongoing feud with them or something.

[dirty ethel rackham]

That is terrible.  Something sImilar happened when FIL died.  During the funeral Mass, the presiding priest talked about Papa, whom he knew well.  This priest talked about his life and his family, his long-dead wife, but didn't say a word about his girlfriend of 25 years ... they both were pillars of their church, volunteered there for just about everything.  They were known by everyone as a couple.  He was with his girlfriend longer than he was married to his wife.  I felt so bad for her.  We have no idea why this priest chose to snub her like that.  She almost didn't come to the burial or the luncheon.  I know dh tried to let her know that it was not the family's wishes that she be excluded. but she was so hurt.  I think dh would have tried to keep in contact with her more after the funeral, but we had several serious mental health crises with K in the months that followed and were overwhelmed with that. 

[Miss Mousie]

:(  I'm sorry.  It stinks when people do petty and mean things. 

 

:grouphug:

[Arcadia]

:grouphug:

I have a paternal uncle who would do something similar out of spite and narcissism. Luckily my oldest paternal uncle paid for my grandmother's obituary so everyone's name was in.

[MaeFlowers]

Edited because I just realized it was JAWM...

 

I can understand being annoyed, though. My uncle didn't even bother with an obituary for my aunt. Her son, either. It really upset me.

Edited September 27, 2016 by MaeFlowers

[TranquilMind]

 

 

Oh, sorry...just noticed it was JAWM. Well, I'm sorry.

Edited September 28, 2016 by TranquilMind

[NorthwestMom]

:grouphug:

 

Still agreeing with you, but it might be that they left the whole obituary up to the funeral home, which just "filled in the blanks", so to speak.

 

What is published does not change the reality of what was lived.

 

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

[Meriwether]

My great-grandpa's funeral announcement bothered me for a different reason. It only mentioned his wife of a couple years and did not mention the woman he had spent a lifetime with at all.

[OhanaBee]

We just had this happen to a long-time choir member/friend.  His wife died about 15 years ago and for the last 10 years of his life he had......girlfriend?  Companion?  I don't know what exactly to call her, except that she was the one who really looked after George in the final stages of his dementia.  She was the one who made sure he got to choir and then got back home.  She lived next door to him and he called her his "girl".  None of this took away from his [dead] wife......but when it came time for George's memorial service, his girl was completely shunned.

 

It's sad when the family/priest/whoever can't acknowledge an important person in the life of the one having the memorial service.  Hopefully it was just an oversight on the part of the ordained son.  It's hard to write obituaries on the fly, and he may have left it until the last minute, then put it together in haste. 

 

I agree with Farrar that we need to write our own obits so the important parts of our lives aren't left out!

 

 

[zoobie]

That's so hurtful! I'm sorry for your family's loss.

[maize]

The person who pays for the obituary gets to write it.

 

It's very frustrating for us genealogists. My g.g.grandmother's obituary only mentions two of her six husbands and two of at least eight children.

Edited September 28, 2016 by maize

[Tap]

Can you pay for a new obit in the local paper?  Here is a link to a comon formatting used.   Fill in the blanks with some of the original information and then make it more personal from there.  There are two obits on line for my father.  One in the town he lived for most of his life written by my mom.  And one written by his siblings in his (Birth to 30yo)hometown paper, where much of the family still lives. 

 

It wasn't out of animosity, my mom just didn't feel a need to put one in the paper in a town, 2000 miles away, that he left 45 years prior.  It was important to the family, so they paid for it and did so with her blessing.  The hometown obit was more focused on things that happened when he lived in that town (business owner etc).

Edited September 28, 2016 by Tap

[Rachel]

I'm sorry!

 

There was a lady in my life who was sort of a mentor that passed away recently. She had done a lot of work with civil rights including marching in DC when MLK Jr gave his famous speech, had a Ph.D. back when woman didn't really go to college, was on the internet before most people knew what it was, and had started a couple college scholarships. Her obituary was only a couple lines when she probably deserved a full page article in my hometown.

 

Her husband's was the same way and he was a Tuskegee airman. I assumed that they were just humble people. They also did not have public remembrance services which I think had to do with their religious beliefs but I'm not sure.

[J-rap]

Do you think no one in the family wrote up an obituary, so the newspaper just had to make do with the information from the mortician?  One of my first jobs working for the city newspaper was writing obituaries.  Usually the mortician brought it in himself, and generally it was a form that he put together as best as he could with information from the family.  Sometimes it was very lacking.  I would then write up the obituary with whatever information I had.  Sometimes, the family would write the entire obituary, which was really nice.  (I got to write my own grandmother's obituary -- very strange but also I was really glad I could do that for her.)

[Guest]

I'm sorry for this. It could easily have been dealt with as suggested in many posts above.

 

One thing many people don't know is that newspapers charge good money for obituaries. The one for my dad was as concise as could be respectable and in amid size city newspaper, it was $800. Another one I wrote for a minor metropolitan area was $1800 until I cut out some family references. Even then, it was $1500.

 

That's why you increasingly see families paying for Funeral Notices with a link to an online obituary hosted by the funeral home.

 

Maybe the expense was too much. But I also am aware that non-professional obituaries take some odd or emotion-driven turns... :0(

[elegantlion]

I know this is Jawm but obits are expensive in some places. When my dad died, they would the basics like you listed for free, anymore and it was costly. My mom had 3 papers to do, one local and 2 other cities. She paid close to 500 for one that wasn't much more than a decent paragraph size.

 

I'm sorry their actions hurt you, but it may be cost related not intentional.

[MinivanMom]

I'm so sorry this happened, but the the reality is that the person who pays for the obituary gets to decide what it says.

 

Unfortunately, that can lead to brief obituaries when the family can't afford more and to ugly obituaries when there is family conflict. We had a local kid die of a drug overdose recently. Dad paid for a long obituary that made lengthy mention of the boy's new stepmom and her family, but forgot to mention his ex-wife who actually raised the kid. I was really upset when I saw it. Then a few days later, a second obituary appeared that mentioned all the people in the boy's life listed in the traditional order. I assume that mom or her family put that one in. I just felt so sad for the boy that the family conflict carried over into competing obituaries. 

[Bluegoat]

It sounds almost like someone filled in the blanks on a form.

 

I suspect that sometimes when there is an SO with no formal title, people aren't sure how to word it, and they end up leaving it out rather than trying to figure it out.  Obits often seem to be kind of an afterthought that people try and get done with.

 

It might be possible to do another one.

[elegantlion]

The other thing is, for us, we had to do the obit while at the funeral home planning the funeral. You're hit with 40 different choices on everything at a time of grief. Even if you know the wishes of the person, it can be overwhelming. We opted to list my ex in the one obit, but it took us a long while to figure out how to word it so it didn't look like we were still together.

[Anne in CA]

Obituaries are a real racket in some places. I have some close acquaintances who are quite limited with their income who could not afford an obit when the head of their family died and it hurt them deeply.