# Are all obituaries bullshit?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [August 22, 2011, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657 "2011-08-22T15:18:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657/41 "2011-08-23T16:51:55Z")
> [@taffygirl](#):
>
> What’s the purpose of an obituary? I think an obit is an opportunity to tell the world what we’ve lost. In the case of my parents, there was no BS–they really were wonderful people. I’ve seen some that are works of fiction, like that of a generally belligerent man who repeatedly threw his arrogant daughter out of the house: the obituary said she was “Daddy’s little girl” and that they were quite close. :rolleyes: In those cases, it’s more a matter of bragging and exaggeration, of showing the person to the world the way we want the world to see the deceased and, what’s probably more important to them, the family.
>
> People also get squeamish about speaking ill of the dead. Not many people would be willing to write, “He was a cantankerous old coot who once chased the milkman with a meat axe,” though that would be infinitely more entertaining.
I figure the purpose of the obit (death notice) is to say “Bob Davis died. Its the Bob who was 72 years old and husband to Mary and the father of Susan and Jim. If you knew Bob, - or Mary, Susan or Jim and want to offer condolences - his funeral is here.” (And here is notice in a paper that he is dead, as is required in some jurisdictions for some legal purposes - and sometimes processes like letting grandkids delay finals in college).
The format of them is more formal, but that’s the idea.
But then, I’m terribly unsentimental and figure that people who know the person knew him and don’t need to be told what he was like. No one else cares. If I’m going to offer a eulogy, the appropriate place for that is at the funeral or wake, not in the paper.
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### Author:  [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657/42 "2011-08-23T16:57:54Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#):
>
> If that’s real, why would anyone go to the trouble of publishing it? I get that they didn’t like her, but it seems tacky to publicly tell the world how they felt about her.
I imagine writing and publishing that may have been therapeutic.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657/43 "2011-08-23T17:00:01Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#):
>
> I figure the purpose of the obit (death notice) is to say “Bob Davis died. Its the Bob who was 72 years old and husband to Mary and the father of Susan and Jim. If you knew Bob, - or Mary, Susan or Jim and want to offer condolences - his funeral is here.” (And here is notice in a paper that he is dead, as is required in some jurisdictions for some legal purposes - and sometimes processes like letting grandkids delay finals in college).
Obits and death notices are different things, or at least they can be.
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### Author:  [@Toucanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toucanna)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657/44 "2011-08-23T17:10:53Z")
> [@Foxy40](#):
>
> Here is an honest one.
>
> “Dolores Aguilar, born in 1929 in New Mexico, {snip}”
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#):
>
> If that’s real, why would anyone go to the trouble of publishing it?{snip}
[According to _Snopes.com_, it’s real.](http://www.snopes.com/media/iftrue/obituary.asp)
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657/45 "2011-08-23T17:16:20Z")
FYI, [here](http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_10241014)’s the article from The Daily Breeze mentioned in that Snopes piece on Dolores Aguilar’s obituary. It includes some more information from the daughter who wrote it.
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### Author:  [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657/46 "2011-08-23T18:23:56Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> Obits and death notices are different things, or at least they can be.
Yep, this is the third time I’m saying that.
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### Author:  [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657/47 "2011-08-23T18:35:12Z")
Because my Christian grandmother helped with information for my mother’s obituary, it says she was a member of my grandmother’s church. My mother was an atheist and I am almost positive she never set foot in that church. That didn’t bother me so much that she requested donations to the church instead of flowers. Now granted flowers are just for show (and scent!) but I think my mama would have rather had flowers than people funding the church’s new portable baptismal.
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657/48 "2011-08-23T21:01:07Z")
There was a firefighter who died in my town. It was at the fire, although that didn’t kill him, he collapsed from exertion with a heart attack. Maybe if he had been more fit…
Anyway, he’d lived for a while with my cousin, who had a child with him. He’d been married and divorced, with one kid already. Then my cousin threw him out when she came home and found him in bed, with another woman.
He moved on after that and married again, had a kid with that woman.
I guess firefighters are all supposed to be considered heroic, His funeral cortege was really lengthy, there was a big public memorial, and on TV he was described as “a staunch family man.”
Sure, he liked families so much he had at least three of them. My cousin’s kid attended the memorial, but she didn’t really want to, “Dad” had almost never seen her, only coming around a few times.
And the obituary in the paper was crap.
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### Author:  [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657/49 "2011-08-23T21:35:17Z")
No, but most I’ve seen (my relatives) in the Chicago Tribune are pretty standard wife of, mother of, daughter of, sister of, along with the time and place of the service. In southern Illinois, where I live now, and Indiana where I lived 20 years ago, you get more of the president of the Lions Club, church elder, friend to all, member of the garden society, along with stories. Those I wonder about.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657/50 "2011-08-23T21:36:50Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#):
>
> Yep, this is the third time I’m saying that.
I said it upthread, too. Eleventh time’s the charm!
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### Author:  [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2011, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657/51 "2011-08-23T23:17:07Z")
> [@littlespeedysuperbike](#):
>
> ‘Passed away when his death occured unexpectedly at his home’ was the way my local paper put it when one of my friends was brutally murdered by a crack-cocaine dealer.
There was in obituary in my local paper about a guy who was “preceded in death by his wife.” Which was true, but only because he shot her before he shot himself.
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### Author:  [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2011, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657/52 "2011-08-24T23:52:44Z")
The “preceded in death by parents Tom and Myrtle” does kinda irritate me, when the obituary has already stated the decedent is 89 years old. Of COURSE his parents are dead! So are his grandparents, his elementary teachers, his aunts and uncles, and probably a bunch of his cousins and siblings. Also his first dog, all the caterpillars he put in jars, numerous lightning bugs gutted for their bright abdomens, thousands of ants he set on fire, and several dozen snails killed by salting.
~VOW
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### Author:  [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2011, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657/53 "2011-08-25T01:18:05Z")
I \*write \*obituaries, and I like to think \*mine \*are not bullshit.
I try to avoid phrases like “died in his sleep.” How do they know? Just because he was found in bed? How do they know he didn’t wake up at 4:00 a.m. and go “_OW!_ Goddamit, my _aorta!_” and keel over?
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### Author:  [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2011, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657/54 "2011-08-26T01:57:02Z")
This is a touching [obituary](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEE_-BJF-cc) from Singapore.
😃
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2011, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657/55 "2011-08-26T02:13:16Z")
> [@Eve](#):
>
> I \*write \*obituaries, and I like to think \*mine \*are not bullshit.
>
> I try to avoid phrases like “died in his sleep.” How do they know? Just because he was found in bed? How do they know he didn’t wake up at 4:00 a.m. and go “_OW!_ Goddamit, my _aorta!_” and keel over?
Select victim. Sneak into victim’s bedroom while he is sleeping. Apply pillow to victim’s face; apply pressure. When finished laugh evilly.
Honestly, do I have to do everyone’s plotting for them?
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2011, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-obituaries-bullshit/593657/56 "2011-08-26T05:09:24Z")
> [@VOW](#):
>
> The “preceded in death by parents Tom and Myrtle” does kinda irritate me, when the obituary has already stated the decedent is 89 years old. Of COURSE his parents are dead! So are his grandparents, his elementary teachers, his aunts and uncles, and probably a bunch of his cousins and siblings. Also his first dog, all the caterpillars he put in jars, numerous lightning bugs gutted for their bright abdomens, thousands of ants he set on fire, and several dozen snails killed by salting.
> ~VOW
Weeeeelll, my grandmother is close to 107 years old. If she’d had a kid right out of high school said kid could be 89. Actually, my aunt, Grandma’s oldest child, is 83.
My parents, God willing, will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary next year, and my and my dad, who’s almost 82, jokes about not being able to outlive his mother-in-law.
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