Experts share advice on writing a memorable obituary

You volunteered (or have been volunteered) to write an obituary. How do you sum up the life of a loved one in a few words? Try thinking of it as putting together a puzzle, one piece at a time.

Even though Melissa Jayne Kinsey was a professional writer, when her father died in 2014, she hesitated before taking on his obituary. The St. Louis resident says the weight of her grief and the scope of the task was unnerving.

“Where to begin?” she thought. “My dad had served his country and had been a marvelous father and grandfather—but that description fit thousands of other men.”

So Kinsey dug into the details of his life. She wrote how he fell in love with Judy, the effervescent girl in “cat’s-eye glasses” and how they didn’t just adore each other, they “chimed in perfect sync,“ just like his collection of clocks. Of how he enjoyed the Statler Brothers, NASCAR, chicken livers, iced tea and the rhubarb pie his daughter-in-law, Kim, made for him.

“It’s those details that turn someone’s name into a person,” says Kinsey, whose journey into profiling her father led her to write the book, “How to Write an Online Obituary: Virtual Memorials Made Simple.”

Mesa, Ariz., resident Renee Smith wanted to include a few of those personal details when she wrote about the March 8 death of her mother, Andree Granlund. It was the first obituary she’d ever written. “I knew I wanted everyone to know the type of person, not just a chronology of her life,” Smith says.

The piece she wrote included the basics of Granlund’s life, like her age, the jobs she held, her list of survivors and information about her funeral. But Smith also shared that she grew up in a brownstone house in the heart of New York City, how she helped her father, George, load up their truck to sell food, calling out, “Get your fresh vegetables today” and how her mother and first husband, John Ryan, were “Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers on the dance floor” during their weekly outings.

Sharing those kind of insights delights Kay Powell, a retired obituaries editor for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, who has written more than 2,000 obituaries.

Nowadays, Powell often gives humorous talks on obits, extolling on the value of the family written death notice, which she calls “American Folk Art,” capturing the personality and accomplishments of the dead.

Obituaries live long after the person has died. She tells her audience how they can help a child “get to know the great-grandfather who died long before the child was born.”

Would-be obit writers wanting help to uncover the nooks and crannies of someone’s life can find inspiration in the examples Powell shares.

Like the one for Eula King of Ohio which notes her gardening prowess of growing hostas, daylilies and other plants King hoped friends would come and transplant into their own gardens.

Like the one for B. H. Spratt of Florida. “In lieu of flowers, tune up your car and check the air pressure in your tires – he would have wanted that.” Powell writes, “That line alone tells me a lot about him.”

Or the one she wrote for her own mother, Juanita Powell, a Georgia native who died in 2009 at the age of 94. Juanita was “constant in attending Valdosta High School Wildcat football games, never passed up a good game of poker and taught many a child how to win at the game.”

But there’s one line, in particular, that seems to capture readers’ fancy, Powell says. “After she was widowed, there were 13 toothbrushes in her bathroom all kept there by people who regularly enjoyed her company.” Powell could have simple wrote that her mother enjoyed having people over, but it’s hard not to envision those 13 toothbrushes.

Sandi Howlett, a bereavement specialist for Hansen Mortuary in Phoenix, loves to read and collect obituaries, including those people wrote their own.

This past August, she came upon the one for E-Lon-Ka Shin-Ka (Joseph Little Bear) of Grants, N.M. “I have gone to rest under the pine tree, that’s where you’ll find me now. I’ve had my honorable life of love, children, adventure and too many good hunts to count. But today, my winter count is complete. Grandfather took me home where the buffalo still roam.”

You’ve decided to write an obit. Now what?

Funeral homes can give you a start. Most have a form you can fill out to create a framework of someone’s life. There are the usual questions: where they were born, where they died. Academic and work history. Accomplishments, military involvement. Now as for survivors, it can really vary – from listing the immediate family or expanded out to the person’s every last cousin. Some obituaries even include the name of a favorite pet.

Don’t feel pressure to put in every bit of information you’ve gathered. You can always write one version for the newspaper to notify people of the death and a longer one to post online.

No matter how much you write, try to get beyond just the bare facts of a life. 

Whether you’re writing about a child or someone who’s lived nine decades, here are some tips about gathering information:

• Interview several family members, friends and associates to get the basics of their life like their occupation, accomplishments, military background, if any, degrees, awards, etc. 
• Go to where they lived or worked. Take a look at their nightstand or desk to see what they held dear. Check their bookshelves. Did they read only non-fiction or did they have every book Agatha Christie wrote?
• Did they have a nickname?
• What was their personality like? Maybe they were quick to argue but only to get a conversation going. Maybe they were sweet as syrup and didn’t fuss with getting angry.
• Avoid clichés. If you want to write he’d give you the shirt off his back, don’t. Tell the story of just what he did to help someone.
• What type of clothing did they wear? Any quirks like she always wore pants or he donned the same vest to attend church?
• Were they a collector? Maybe they went on weekend quests to yard sales to expand their collection of salt and pepper shakers.

It's time to write. Now what?

Just start with the basics, Powell says. When and how they died, their life’s accomplishments, survivors and funeral and visitation information. But then, go on a “stream of consciousness.” When you’re done, triple-check your facts.

Bob Barrett, a chaplain for Hospice of the Valley in Gilbert, hopes people will embrace writing about a loved one. It can even help someone manage their sorrow. An obituary “affirms what we have lost and strengthens the permission that we give ourselves and others to grieve,’’ he says.

Howlett knows people may fret about getting an obit just right. But shake off those jitters and just try. And, like Kinsey and Powell, she sees the minutiae of a life as compelling.

You can think about a life as the date they were born, the date they died, separated by a dash. That dash may seem insignificant but it is the key to writing a memorable obituary.

It’s where you write about the good things that happened to someone, their trials and successes, their wishes and hopes. It is the heart and soul of your piece, Howlett says, adding, “A life is really found in that dash.’’