OBITUARIES REVEAL LIVES AND HISTORY

        During a recent cocktail gathering at the house one of the guest went missing!  We were sitting in the gazebo enjoying our cocktails and hors d’oeuvre’s and discussing current events along with catching up with everyone’s lives when suddenly I noticed one of the guests was missing.

        “Oh, I think he went to the men’s room,” one said.  Another piped up, “No I think he went to the garage to get more ice from the fridge,” said another.  Not to worry I thought as he would soon return.

        After twenty minutes had passed and he was still a no-show, I got up and toured the house thinking perhaps he was not feeling well.  The house was empty so I checked the front yard and saw no sign of him.  Coming back to the gazebo I said, “Well this is strange, it appears he has evaporated, although his car is still here. “Maybe he is in the garage,” I said walking over to see if something had waylaid him.

        The garage seemed empty and as I was about to leave I saw the door to my “archives” slightly ajar.  I walked over and opened it to find my guest sitting in my “professor’s chair”, a gift from a retired history professor at Emory.  On his lap was one of my large obituary notebooks with another one opened on the floor in front of him.

He asked if it he could come back at some point and continue looking through the notebooks. I told him I would be happy for him to spend as much time as he wanted.  I also mentioned my collection of books on and about obituaries which complemented my obit notebooks.

        A number of years ago I gave a presentation to the Monroe Art Guild on the importance obituaries play in our daily lives and the vast amount of historical facts contained in so many of them.  One of my good friends, Kay Powell, who was at the time head of the obituary department for the Atlanta Journal/Constitution, came from Atlanta to hear me speak.  Back then Kay had a staff of dedicated and talented obituary writers who worked hand in hand with the families of the deceased to gather storiesand pertinent information about their lives which they felt would make interesting readingfor the subscribers of the Atlanta papers.

        When you would see obits written by Joey Geshwiler, Derrick Henry, Holly Crenshaw, Cato Bass, Jim Auchmutey or Rick Badie, you knew you would be reading some wonderful backstories of the people they were profiling.

Kay also excelled in her talent of writing some fascinating obituaries which brought tears to your eyes on some and others who made you laugh out loud by her unique view on their lives. She always told me, “To make the profile read like you actually knew them, you have to put both the good and bad in to show the readers you got the whole story.”

        I met Kay soon after she began working in the obit department and I would call to alert her when various Atlanta folks died I thought deserved a special nod. We became great friends and would visit often for lunch followed by afternoon cocktails and a few hours of delving through my obituary notebooks.  So impressed was I over the many wonderful tributes she wrote for folks, I began a special notebook entitled “Kay Powell’s AJC Obituaries.”

        Obituaries have been around since early times. In the very early recorded newspapersobituaries appeared in the paper to alert the citizens of the town of a death and where the services, usually in the home, would be held.  In the late 1800’s, “Death Journalism” dominated the obituaries with morbid tidbits about how the deceased died.   Then at the turn of the 20^th Century, obituaries were written as poems.

        In the middle of the century, death or “funeral notices” appearing the papers became a bit more formal listing the name of the deceased, the surviving family members, when and where the services were to be held, the officiating minister(s) and the place of burial.

        By the late 20^th Century, Democracy came to rule the newspaper death publishing with the rising of the “common man” concept that recognized regular folks as equal to recently deceased rich aristocrats.  Not long after the  Common Man received a total remake, The New York Times began their “Profile” series which chronicled the lives of those who had made a significant impact in the lives of Americans by the jobs they had, the contributions to business or other contributions the paper felt worthy of recognizing.

        When Kay took over the obituary department for the Atlanta papers, she convinced the editors it would be important for the papers to recognize, like the New York Times, those local individuals who made significant contributions not only to the city but the impact their lives made on their friends and families.  These “obituary profiles” became a big hit with the readers of the papers and for many, were the first thing they read upon opening their daily papers.

        For Monroe residents back in the day, we had our own literary scribes, in the persons of editors Edward A. Caldwell and Ernest Camp, who knew almost everyone in town and the county.  When a death would occur in our midst, it usually fell to these men to give the deceased a literary sendoff.  Mention would be made of the individual’s station in life, what they contributed to the city, the attendance at the service and the number of floral offerings in the church. Both editors strove to see these tributes were as effusive as they could make them depending on the gender of the deceased. I always wondered if these newsmen actually counted how many flower arrangements were in the church as they made their notes on the service! While neither editor could attend all the services on any given day, they received information for the papers by other staff members or trusted friends.

        In present day, obituaries have changed yet again.They are more relaxed and personal, incorporating much family history and lore along with the accomplishments of the deceased complete with their photos.  Cremations and memorial services have increased over traditional funeral services as they can be held weeks or months after the death which fit in better with the family’s mobility to accommodate family members across the country whose schedules would not make it convenient to come to town for a service a day or so after a death had occurred.

        In today’s world of Ancestry. Com and the increased interest in learning about our families from generations past, the obituary has once again come into prominence for the vast amount of family genealogy it can provide.  I recently received a pamphlet on how to use obituaries to research your family tree which is quite helpful if you are like me and have saved scores of obituaries from family members dating back a hundred years or more.

        Love them or hate them for the reminder one day we all will have our obituary noted somewhere, they serve a unique purpose in recording our lives for better or worse.  Like a beloved Monroe matron once confided in me, “We write our obituaries every day of our lives.” As for my obituary, I am still “working on it.”