Sunday, April 09, 2006

Everlasting Love

It's not unusual for couples who have been married for a long time to die close together, and we've all written obits about that. Holly Crenshaw, an obit writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, gave readers a glimpse into the successful 76-year marriage of Mae Smith and her husband Charlie Smith of Jonesboro, GA: She led, he followed, even unto death.

They were in hospital rooms across the hall from each other, and Mr. Smith was expected to die first. Instead, Mrs. Smith died first and Mr. Smith died the next day. His mother, her son said, "was going to take the lead in everything."

This love story was the most viewed and emailed story online at www.ajc.com Friday and continues to be in the Top 10 online stories. It's the top viewed story of the month.

Here's the link to http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/
obits/stories/0407metobsmith.html

Holly's email address is hcrenshaw@ajc.com

An Atlanta radio station read the obit on the air Friday, and a steady stream of emails has been coming to Holly since the double obit was published. It will make you laugh; it will make you cry—at the same time.

Kay Powell

2 comments:

Alana Baranick said...

Honest, Kay. I wasn't trying to copy Holly's couples obit when I wrote a couples obit for Frank and Lucille Novak for today's (Tues. April 11) Plain Dealer.

I didn't read about the Smiths and then plan to follow suit. You can't plan on these things. You can't will a couple to die on the obit writer's schedule like that.

Over the last 15 years, I've written several obits for married couples who left the planet around the same time. I mention this in the "Let Me Count The Ways" chapter of "Life on the Death Beat." (Alana, you shameless self-promoter!) So it's not like I'm stealing Holly's idea.

Some of these double obits have been incredibly touching. Others, more matter-of-fact.

For some couples, who stay married as long as Mae and Charlie Smith did, there is no "everlasting love" story. It's like being stuck in an unsatisfying job for 30 years just so you can keep your health insurance.

The Novaks - married 55 years - had the everlasting kind of love, but I don't think I conveyed this as well as Holly did for the Smiths.

Alana Baranick said...

Two-fers. I like that, Amy. And I love the story. Both Monte and Viola led busy, interesting lives.

I checked The Plain Dealer archives and found that I've written at least 12 two-fers for married couples in the last 14 years. The early ones were poorly written. Really, really poorly written.

The most recent one - for Frank and Lucille Novak - drew a lot of comments from my colleagues and from other people I encountered yesterday and today. All were positive except one. A woman complained that, because I said that Mrs. N. was the child of Italian immigrants, I should have mentioned that Mr. N. was Slovak.

She's probably right. It's something I'll keep in mind in the future.